or anywhere else; such behaviour is manifest error and patent shirk. There are even people who refuse to turn their backs to the direction in which some righteous person is buried, yet they will turn their backs to the direction of the House of Allah and the grave of His Messenger—may Allah bless him and grant him peace. All of these practices are innovations that resemble the religion of the Christians.

What makes this clear is that, even with respect to offering greetings to the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—the early Muslims were meticulous in adhering to the Sunnah, lest it slip into a blameworthy form that might lead to the kind of exaggeration practised by the Christians. They acted on his words:

“Do not take my grave as a festival,”

and his words:

“Do not lavish praise on me as the Christians lavished praise on Jesus son of Mary. I am only a servant, so say: the servant of Allah and His Messenger.”

Because of this, some early scholars would ask about greeting the grave, fearing it might fall under the above prohibition, until it was pointed out to them that Ibn ʿUmar used to do so.

For this reason Mālik—may Allah have mercy on him—and other scholars disliked it for the people of Madinah that, every time one of them entered the mosque, he should go and greet the grave of the Prophet—Allah bless him and grant him peace—and the graves of his two Companions. He said, “That should only be done when one arrives from a journey, is about to depart on a journey, or the like.”

Some scholars did allow greeting him when one enters the mosque for prayer and similar purposes. As for intentionally making the grave a constant destination for prayer and salām, I know of no one who granted a concession for that, because that type of