Eleventh Topic
Innovations surrounding graves, mausoleums, sanctuaries, relics, and the like rank among the most rampant and perilous forms of idol-making practices confronting Muslims today. Foremost are: venerating the dead and their graves; constructing edifices over them; dedicating vows to them; slaughtering sacrificial animals at them; calling upon the occupants of the graves instead of Allah; rubbing oneself against the tombs for blessing; undertaking journeys to them; staying or camping beside them; performing prayer at or within them; turning relics—those attributed to the prophets, the righteous, and others—into shrines and places of visitation; seeking blessing from them; treating them as festive occasions; and other well-known customs that have spread among Muslims since the fourth Islamic century.

The author notes that the first to lure Muslims into these innovations were the Rāfiḍites and the Bāṭinite offshoots that branched out from them and permeated the Muslim community, along with certain Ṣūfī orders, followed by spiteful sects such as the Ismāʿīlīs, Qarmatians, Nuṣayrīs, Ittihādīs, and Ḥulūlīs.(1)

These groups popularized the innovations once they acquired political power—after the rise of the Fāṭimid and Qarmaṭian states in the fourth century AH and beyond—spreading and institutionalizing these acts of polytheism throughout Muslim lands.

Today these practices still loom large in most Muslim countries—apart from Saudi Arabia and some Gulf states—and they continue to grow and spread, especially among the Shīʿah.