the disbelievers—covering both its foundational principles and subsidiary issues, its rational and textual proofs, together with the reports and stances transmitted from the early generations—in a sober, scholarly manner that satisfies the reader and leaves him feeling that he is confronting a matter whose contours are clear, whose pathways are plain, and whose evidences and rulings are unmistakable. One cannot finish any topic the author addresses without grasping it fully and being convinced by the proofs and conclusions he presents.

Second:
The principle the author laid down—though it ranks among the most important pillars of the creed of the righteous predecessors in the first three blessed generations, and though the Companions, their successors, and the successors of those successors continually warned the ummah against taking it lightly or falling into what Allah and His Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, forbade of resembling the disbelievers, the non-Arabs, and the like—very nearly faded from the minds of most Muslims after those early centuries. Consequently they slipped into the very practices that were prohibited, following the ways of other nations step by step.

Among the things they adopted—by way of example—was building structures over graves and turning them into mosques, a matter explicitly condemned in the Sunnah. The Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, warned his community against it in the strongest terms, as will be shown in the course of this book; yet sections of the ummah still fell into it.

Then the author, may Allah have mercy on him, arose to clarify and publicize the issue with both tongue and pen: he wrote, debated, commanded, and forbade, and—praise be to Allah—his call bore fruit. The present volume represents only one part of his broader effort to proclaim the truth in this regard.

Third:
Through my study of the work I have found it to be as though it were written for the Muslims of our own time—whether in its subject matter, the way those subjects are investigated and treated, or in its style. In my view this is due to several factors, among them: