and that it is not permissible to bury a deceased person in a mosque. If the mosque predates the burial, this must be rectified, either by leveling the grave or by exhuming it if it is recent. If the mosque was built after the grave, either the mosque must be removed or the grave’s outward form must be effaced. Neither obligatory nor voluntary prayers are to be offered in a mosque built over a grave, for this is forbidden.

He was asked:

A group of people are lodging in the congregational mosque, remaining there day and night. They eat, drink and sleep there, and keep all their belongings and furnishings there. They prevent anyone outside their own group from lodging with them and have monopolized the mosque. Another group then entered some of its enclosed areas to recite the Quran, seeking Allah’s reward, but some of the residents stopped them, saying, “This is our place.” Is this permissible? Give us a ruling, and may you be rewarded.

He replied:

Praise be to Allah. No one has the right to reserve any part of the mosque for himself in such a way that he permanently excludes others from it. Indeed, “the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, forbade habitually occupying one spot as a camel does.”

The scholars said: This means that a man adopts a particular place in the mosque and does not pray