is Muhammad.”’ Then he would leave.” (1).
Section
It was not part of the Prophet’s guidance, peace and blessings be upon him, to raise graves high, build them with fired bricks, stone, or sun-dried bricks, build them up, coat them with clay, or erect domes over them. All of this is a reprehensible innovation contrary to his guidance. He sent ‘Alī ibn Abī Tālib (2) with instructions to leave no image without effacing it and no elevated grave without levelling it (3). His sunnah, therefore, is to level all such elevated graves. He forbade plastering graves, building over them, and writing on them (4).
The graves of his Companions were (5) neither elevated nor flat against the ground. The same was true of his noble grave and the graves of his two Companions. His grave, peace and blessings be upon him, was shaped like a low mound and covered with red courtyard gravel, neither built up nor coated with clay. The graves of his two Companions were likewise (6).
He would mark with a stone the grave of anyone whose grave he wished to recognize (7) (8).
(1) See also the author’s al-Rūh (1:32).
(2) The al-Risālah edition adds “to Yemen” after this; the addition comes from al-Fiqī.
(3) Recorded by Muslim (969), from ‘Alī ibn Abī Tālib.
(4) Recorded by Muslim (970), from Jābir ibn ‘Abd Allāh.
(5) All witnesses except k read: wa-kāna (“and was”).
(6) Recorded by al-Bukhārī (1390), from Sufyān al-Tammār, who reported seeing the Prophet’s grave, peace and blessings be upon him, shaped like a mound.
(7) That is, an ya‘rifa (“to recognize”). The word ya‘rifu (“recognize”) is omitted in k and vocalized in the passive in j. An example of omitting an (“to”) before a present-tense verb occurs in the Prophet’s statement, peace and blessings be upon him, in the hadith of Umm Habībah: “It is not lawful for a woman who believes in Allah and the Last Day to mourn a deceased person for more than three days…” Recorded by al-Bukhārī (1281). The same wording occurs in the second hadith, from Zaynab bint Jahsh (1282). See also al-Dā’ wa-l-Dawā’ (p. 34).
(8) Recorded by Ibn Abī Shaybah (11862, 37067), Abū Dāwūd (3206), al-Dūlābī in al-Kunā wa-l-Asmā’ (1:217), and al-Bayhaqī (3:312), through several routes from Kathīr ibn Zayd, from al-Muttalib ibn Abī Wadā‘ah, may Allah be pleased with him. Its chain of transmission was graded hasan (good) by Ibn al-Mulaqqin in al-Badr al-Munīr (5:325) and al-Hāfiz in al-Talkhīs (3:1241). See also Ibn Abī Hātim’s al-‘Ilal (1028).