Mu‘ādh, tell me: if you passed by my grave, would you prostrate before it?” He replied, “No.” He said, “Prostration is proper only for Allah”—or words to that effect.

If it is impermissible to prostrate before the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, whether alive or dead, or before his grave, how could it be permissible to prostrate before anyone else?

Indeed, it is authentically reported that he said:

“Do not sit on graves, and do not pray facing them.”

He thus prohibited praying towards graves, just as he prohibited taking them as places of worship. Accordingly, when they enlarged the mosque and incorporated his chamber into it, they gave its rear a ridged form, angled away from alignment with the qiblah, so that no one would pray towards the Prophet’s chamber. What, then, of prostrating towards anyone else, whoever he may be?

As for someone saying, “This prostration is for Allah Most High,” if he is lying, lying is disgrace enough. If he is telling the truth, he must be called upon to repent; if he repents, well and good, but otherwise he is to be put to death. For prostration may only be performed in a prescribed manner: prostration during prayer, prostration for forgetfulness, prostration upon recitation, and—according to one of the two scholarly views—prostration of gratitude.

As for prostrating immediately after prayer without a reason, the scholars have disapproved of it. Likewise, the practice of some shaykhs of performing two prostrations after witr was neither practised by any of the early generations nor recommended by any of the imams. Rather, these people had heard a hadith narrated by Abū Mūsā, the one found in al-Wazā’if: “The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, used to