came before you used to take graves as mosques. Take heed: do not take graves as mosques, for I forbid you to do so.’”

In Sahīh Muslim, Abū Marthad al-Ghanawī reports that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“Do not sit on graves or pray towards them.”

In the Musnad and the Sahīh of Abū Hātim, he, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, is reported to have said:

“Among the worst of people are those whom the Hour overtakes while they are still alive, and those who take graves as mosques.”

His prohibition against making his grave a place of recurring observance has already been mentioned.

When the Companions understood that he had forbidden them to make it a place for the obligatory prayers through which they drew near to Allah, Almighty and Majestic, lest they resemble the polytheists who invoke graves, pray to them and make vows to them, the prohibition against invoking them was all the stronger. Likewise, since he forbade them to pray at sunrise and sunset lest they resemble those who prostrate to the sun, the prohibition against prostrating to the sun itself applied with still greater force.

The Companions, may Allah be pleased with them, therefore sought to pray, supplicate and remember Allah in the mosques built for Him, rather than at the graves of the prophets and the righteous, which they had been forbidden to take as mosques. Those graves are only the abodes of created beings. After his death, they continued to do what they had done during his lifetime, may Allah bless him and his family and grant him peace.

Among the evidence supporting what Mālik and other Muslim scholars mentioned concerning their disapproval of the people of Medina deliberately going to the grave when entering or leaving, and similar practices