religious innovation, who take the graves of prophets and righteous people as places of worship. It is widely reported from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, in the authentic hadith collections and elsewhere, that he said as he approached death:

“May Allah curse the Jews and Christians; they took the graves of their prophets as places of worship.”

He was warning against what they had done. ʿĀʾishah, may Allah be pleased with her, said: “Were it not for that, his grave would have been left exposed, but it was considered objectionable that it should be made a place of worship.”

It is also authentically established that he, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“Those before you used to take graves as places of worship. Do not take graves as places of worship, for I forbid you to do so.”

Visits based on religious innovation include deliberately going to the grave of a prophet or righteous person to pray there, to supplicate there or through him, to ask him to fulfil one’s needs or to ask Allah Most High to fulfil them at his grave, to seek his aid, to adjure Allah Most High by him, and similar practices. These are religious innovations that none of the Companions or those who followed them in righteousness practised. Neither the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, nor any of his rightly guided caliphs prescribed them. Rather, the leading scholars of the Muslims prohibited them.

The hadith that some people transmit, “When you ask Allah, ask Him by virtue of my standing,” is a fabrication that none of the Muslim scholars transmitted, nor is it found in any of the books of hadith. It is like the saying they attribute to him: “If any of you placed his confidence in a stone, Allah would cause him to benefit through it.” This too is a fabrication.