the utmost refinement in raising them aloft, solidly constructing them, crowning them with domes, and building mosques beside them—especially the tombs of tyrannical rulers whose lives produced scarcely a single deed for which Islam might be thankful, and the self-styled shaykhs and charlatans, most of whom were ignorant of the very rulings of faith. There is simply no comparison between such people and those towering figures like Abu ʿUbaydah ibn al-Jarrah and his peers among the eminent Companions, who received the religion fresh and pristine and, through their piety and virtue, reached the loftiest heights.

The answer to this is that the Companions and the Successors were by no means less appreciative, in their own era, of men’s worth, nor less inclined to exalt the rank of the celebrated heroes and righteous members of the ummah who arose among them. Yet they recoiled from erecting monumental graves or venerating mortal remains, for they were fully aware of the explicit prohibition issued by the Lawgiver of this radiant, lenient Abrahamic faith—a faith sent to uproot every trace of idolatry and erase all forms of reverence for bones or devotion at the tombs of the dead; and they held