abandon your gods; do not abandon Wadd, nor Suwaʿ, nor Yaghūth, nor Yaʿūq, nor Nasr.’ (Noah 71:23).
They said: These were righteous men among Noah’s people. When they died, their folk began to frequent their graves; then they carved statues in their likenesses, and after a long interval they came to worship them.
Al-Bukhārī mentions this meaning in his Ṣaḥīḥ (1) from Ibn ʿAbbās; Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī and others relate it in their Tafsīrs (2) from several of the early authorities; and Wathīmah (3) and others transmit it in Qasas al-Anbiyāʾ through various routes. I have elaborated the foundational aspects of these questions elsewhere.
The first to fabricate the hadiths that urge travelling to visit the shrines erected over graves were the innovators (4)—the Rāfiḍah and the like—who neglect the mosques and exalt the shrines (5) wherein polytheism is practiced, lies are uttered (6), and new forms of religion are introduced that