a festival. So observe how this practice has come down to us from the people of Madinah and from the Prophet’s own Household—those who enjoyed the closest ties to Allah’s Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, both by blood and by neighborhood. Because they stood in greater need of this guidance than anyone else, they safeguarded it most scrupulously.

[Using the word ʿid for a gathering-place]

When the word ʿid is employed for a location, it denotes a site to which people deliberately converge and which they repeatedly visit, whether for acts of worship or for other purposes. In this sense Allah has made the Sacred Mosque, Minā, Muzdalifah, and ʿArafah an “ʿid,” a place of return for mankind: they gather there and come back to them time and again for supplication, remembrance, and the sacred rites. The polytheists likewise possessed spots that they frequented for the sake of assembling there, but when Islam dawned, Allah blotted all of that out.

This category of places encompasses the graves of the prophets and the righteous—as well as the sites that may only possibly be their graves—and, indeed, all other graves as well. A Muslim’s grave enjoys the sanctity laid down by the Sunnah, for it is the abode of the deceased believer: by unanimous agreement no impurity is to be left upon it, it is neither to be walked over nor trampled, and it is not to be used as a backrest—according to us and the majority of scholars. Nothing that would offend the dead, whether sordid words or deeds, should be carried out nearby. When one visits, it is recommended to greet the occupant and pray for him, and the more virtuous the deceased, the more emphatic his right becomes.

Buraidah ibn al-Ḥuṣayb, may Allah be pleased with him, said: “The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, used to teach them that when …”