Christians in Damascus. If they are in areas inhabited by the Ismāʿīlīs, Nusayrīs, or similar groups, they take them to their graves. If they are in Egypt, they take them to the graves of Jews and Christians, or of these ʿUbaydīs, who sometimes claim descent from the Prophet, although they are not his descendants. They do not take horses to the graves of the prophets and the righteous, nor to the graves of ordinary Muslims. This is known from experience among soldiers and those among them who are knowledgeable.

The reason given for this is that the unbelievers are punished in their graves, and animals hear their cries, as the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, informed us. In the two Sahīh collections, it is related concerning the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace:

“He was riding his mule and passed some graves. It shied, nearly throwing him off, and he said, ‘These are the cries of Jews being punished in their graves.’”

When animals hear that dreadful sound, it produces enough heat within them to dispel the colic. The ignorant used to think that horses were walked near these people’s graves because of their religious devotion and merit. But then it became clear to them that horses were walked near the graves of Jews, Christians, Nusayrīs, and the like, rather than those of the prophets and the righteous. Scholars also explained that, in Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere, horses were not walked near the grave of anyone known for piety; rather, they were walked only near the graves of the wicked and the unbelievers. Thus, what had been unclear became evident.

Anyone familiar with the events of Islamic history and what took place between Islam’s supporters and its enemies among the unbelievers and hypocrites knows that these transgressors’ hostility towards the Islam with which Allah sent His Messenger was greater than that of the Tatars. He also knows that the esoteric knowledge they claimed was, in reality, the repudiation of the message with which Allah sent Muhammad—indeed, the repudiation of all the messengers—and that they do not acknowledge