and each of them has a caretaker whose self-appointed task, Allah be praised, is to “guide” the visitors on how to pay their respects at this grave and that one, and on the offerings they are required to present.

Someone in Damascus once told me the following: A woman came to visit the grave of John (peace be upon him) in the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus. One of the caretakers heard her. He seemed to have some awareness of the truth, yet he used the job of caretaking as a way to earn a living. The man heard this poor woman standing there and praying: “O master John, I have come seeking your intercession so that our Lord may heal my son.” How did the caretaker, trying to pacify her, respond? He said, “Woman, someone came here before you, and Master John went with her—he went with her to heal her son or daughter, or whatever it was.” These blatantly idolatrous farces could not be more obvious.

In Aleppo there used to be a grave—praise be to Allah, it was later removed, though not for religious reasons but merely to beautify the city. The grave’s very name tells you the misguidance to which people had succumbed: it was called “Qāḍī al-Ḥājat,” the Judge of Needs. People flocked to it from everywhere, especially women. If a woman was barren—one year, two years, whatever it might be—they would say, “Go to the Judge of Needs.” What was she supposed to do there? The Judge of Needs’ grave was in one of the shrines we have been discussing, and the grave itself had a raised hump. Through the caretaker, Satan suggested to the people that if a barren woman came, mounted the grave in a certain manner, and performed particular movements, she would—so they claimed—become pregnant by Allah’s permission.

Later the matter would be exposed: that caretaker, with his devious methods, would approach those weak-minded women and tell them, “You must spend the night here so that the Judge of Needs can visit you.” The woman would actually believe this and would spend the night there, alone with the man inside the shrine… This by itself should be enough for any Muslim who knows the Prophet’s statement (blessings and peace be upon him): “Whenever a man is alone with a woman, Satan is the third among them.” (1)