And whoever does not acknowledge that, after Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—was sent, no one can be a Muslim unless he believes in him and follows him inwardly and outwardly, is not a Muslim. Whoever does not consider it forbidden, after his mission—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—to profess the religion of the Jews or Christians—indeed, whoever does not regard them as disbelievers and hate them—is not a Muslim, by the consensus of Muslims.
The point here is that Christians like Muslims to have practices resembling their own, so that their religion may thereby be strengthened and Muslims may not be repelled by them or their religion. For this reason, Islamic law requires differing from the Jews and Christians, as we have explained at length in our book, “The Requirement of the Straight Path to Differ from the People of Hell.” Christians have obtained much of what they seek from ignorant Muslims, particularly extremists among the Shia, ignorant ascetics, and those who go to extremes in venerating shaykhs. These people closely resemble Christians in their excesses, innovations in worship, and similar matters. Thus, Christians mislead Muslims about graves belonging to their own community, so that ignorant people imagine them to be the graves of righteous Muslims and venerate them.
If some have said that the shrine at Ascalon is the grave of a Christian or one of the disciples—and we have no evidence that it is the grave of a Muslim, let alone a grave containing al-Husayn’s head—then the claim that it is the grave of