at short intervals along that route. No sooner had those structures been erected than rumors began to spread about the saints allegedly buried there and the marvels seen at their hands, and before long the road became busy, sought-after, and thriving.

I would like, purely for Allah’s sake, to send a sincere word to Muslims in the East and the West: stop aggrandizing graves, for it is a rallying-cry of self-importance, a summons to egocentrism and to the detested aristocracy that has smothered the spirit of the East.

Return to the wide precincts of the religion that makes all people equal, whether living or dead. No one has any superiority over another except through piety and through what his own hands have sent ahead in deeds done solely for the sake of Allah. (1)

The capable writer and celebrated author, the meticulous scholar Ustadh Rafiq