Al-Munāwī (1) said: “Decorating mosques and embellishing copies of the Quran are prohibited because this distracts the heart and diverts one from humility, reflection, and attentiveness before Allah Most High. The position of the Shāfiʿīs is that decorating a mosque—even the Kaaba—with gold or silver is categorically forbidden, while decorating it with anything else is disliked.” (2)
- Competing in the Construction of Tall Buildings
This is one of the signs that appeared not long after the era of Prophethood and subsequently became widespread, until people began vying with one another in construction and in decorating their homes. This occurred because worldly abundance was granted to the Muslims and wealth multiplied in their hands after the conquests. As time passed, many of them became attached to this world, and the malady of the nations before them crept among them: competing to amass wealth and spend it in ways in which it should not be spent according to Islamic law. Eventually, even desert dwellers and others like them who had formerly been needy and poor were granted worldly abundance, just like other people, and began constructing multistory buildings and competing with one another in doing so.
All of this has occurred just as the truthful one whose truthfulness is confirmed—peace and blessings be upon him—foretold, for in