Topic 4

• Throughout much of human history honoring the dead through elaborate burial rites, ornate tombs, and decorated graves, along with the festivals of commemoration and adoration has led to great confusion and misguidance in religion. As a result, much of mankind has become involved in some form of grave worship.
• In more recent times, the practice of building shrines included even the graves of leaders of social movements like Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and Muhammad Ahmad, the so-called Mahdi of Sudan. Many ignorant Muslims travel vast distances to perform religious rites of Tawaaf around these tombs.
• Some grave worshippers among Muslims pray to the dead asking them to convey their request to Allah for the fulfilment of their needs. This practice is based on their belief that righteous dead people are not only closer to and fulfilling it.
• Others pray directly to the dead begging them for forgiveness for their sins. In so doing, they give dead humans Allah’s attribute of being (at Tawaab), the One to whom repentance is due, as well as that of being (al-Ghafoor), the only One capable of forgiving sins.
• These methods are rejected by the teaching of Islam which holds that one who dies enters the dimension called Barzakh, wherein his deeds come to an end. He is unable to do anything for the living, though the results of his deeds may affect the living and continue to earn reward or punishment for himself.
• Formal prayer was forbidden in graveyards regardless of their intention. Abu Sa’eed al-Khudree reported from the Prophet SAW that He said: All the earth is a masjid (place of worship) except graveyards and toilets. Ibn Umar also reported that the Prophet SAW said, pray in your houses, do not make them graveyards.
• Prophet’s SAW prohibited purposely praying in the direction of graves because such an act may be later understood by the ignorant as prayer directed to the dead themselves. Abu Marthad al Ghanawee reported that the Prophet said, do not pray towards graves nor sit on them.
• The recitation of Qur’an in graveyards is not allowed as neither the Prophet SAW nor his companions were known to do so. Particularly since the Prophet’s told his wife to give Salaam and a prayer but did not tell her to recite al Faatihah or any other chapter from the Qur’an. 


  Abu Hurayrah also reported that the Prophet SAW had said, do not make your houses graveyards, for verily Satan flees from the house in which Soorah al Baqarah is read. Qur’anic recitation is encouraged in the house and making it like a graveyard, in which no recitation should take place, is forbidden.
• The Prophet SAW forbade the whitewashing of graves, the building of structures over them, writing on them, or raising them above ground level. He also taught that any such structures should be torn down and the graves made level with the ground. 


  Alee Ibn Abee Taalib reported that the Prophet SAW ordered him to demolish all idols he came across and to level all graves, which were more than a palm’s width high, with the surrounding earth.
• The building of a masjid over graves was expressly forbidden by the Prophet SAW. The Prophet’s wife Aa’eshah reported that when the dead was descending upon Allah’s messenger, he drew his striped cloak over his face.
• To prevent grave worship, the Prophet SAW also forbade annual or seasonal gatherings even around his own grave. Abu Hurayrah reported that he said, do not make my grave an Eid (place of celebration), nor make your houses graveyards, and ask (Allah’s) blessing for me wherever you may because it will reach me.”
• Setting out on journeys to visit graves was also forbidden by the Prophet SAW. Sa’eed al Khudree both reported that Allah’s Messenger said, do not travel except to three masjids, Masjidil Haraam (the Ka’bah in Makkah) the masjid of the Messenger, and al-Aqsa Masjid.