None of this, however, makes it commendable to perform prayer there, or to seek out those sites for supplication or other rites of worship, for the very act of directing worship to them entails harms the Lawgiver has made known, as mentioned earlier. I have raised these points only because someone might imagine they conflict with what we previously established, whereas they do not.

Fourth Point: The notion that prayers are more readily answered at such graves, and that they possess special virtue, has prompted people to travel to them deliberately. Large crowds sometimes gather there at set seasons, and this is exactly what the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—forbade when he said:

“Do not turn my grave into a festival,”

and when he said,

“May Allah curse the Jews and the Christians; they took the graves of their prophets as places of worship,”

and when he said,

“Do not turn graves into places of worship; those before you used to turn graves into places of worship, and I forbid you from that.”

Some Innovations Related to Graves

Indeed, one finds graves where people gather on a specific day each year and even undertake journeys to them—whether in Muḥarram, Rajab, Shaʿbān, Dhū al-Ḥijjah, or other months. At some they assemble on the Day of ʿĀshūrāʾ, at others on the Day of ʿArafah, and at still others