Section: The Various Types of Location-Based “Festivals”
Just as time-based festivals are divided into categories, so too the occasions tied to specific places fall into three divisions:
- A site to which the Sacred Law assigns no special status whatsoever.
- A site that does possess a particular distinction, yet one that does not warrant being singled out as a place of worship.
- A site where worship is legislated, but which is still not to be treated as a festival.
All three kinds are attested in the transmitted texts. One such report is the Prophet’s—peace and blessings be upon him—reply to the man who had vowed to slaughter an animal at Buwānah:
“Does that place contain an idol worshipped by the polytheists, or is it one of their festivals?”
He answered, “No.”
The Prophet said, “Then fulfil your vow.”
Likewise his statement, “Do not turn my grave into a festival,” and the prohibition related from ʿUmar against turning the relics of the prophets into festivals, as we shall explain, God willing.
[First Category: A Site with No Standing in the Sacred Law]
Of the three, the first is a place that enjoys absolutely no virtue in the Sharīʿah and nothing that warrants preferring it over other locales. It is like every other spot—indeed, it may be inferior to them. To set out for such a place, or to gather there for prayer, supplication, remembrance, or any similar act, is plain misguidance.
If, on top of that, the place contains relics of the unbelievers—whether Jews, Christians, or others—the matter is all the more blameworthy, falling both under this heading and under the preceding discussion of resembling the disbelievers.