—I guarantee him, before Allah, Paradise.” (1)
–and his statement:
“Whoever visits me after my death, it is as though he visited me during my life; and whoever visits me after my death, my intercession becomes incumbent upon him.” (2)
and the like. All of these reports are weak—indeed fabricated—hadiths. They are found in none of the authoritative repositories of Islam (3) on which scholars rely, nor were they transmitted by any of the Imams of the Muslims—not even the four Imams or anyone comparable to them (4). Rather, a few of them were narrated by al-Bazzar, al-Daraqutni, and others (5) through chains that are weak, for it is the habit of al-Daraqutni and those like him (6) to record such material (7) in their Sunan (8) so that it may be recognized; he and others (9) then clarify the weakness of each such report. And if (10) these practices that contain elements of polytheism and innovation have already (11) been prohibited—