are those who take others as equals to Allah, loving them as they love Allah.” Whoever loves a created being as he loves Allah is a polytheist. A distinction must be made between loving for Allah’s sake and loving others as rivals to Allah.
You find that those who have made graves into idols ridicule what belongs to worshipping Allah alone, while venerating those they have taken as intercessors besides Allah. One of them will knowingly swear a false oath, yet not dare swear falsely by his shaykh. Among many different groups, you find people who believe that seeking their shaykh’s aid, whether at his grave or elsewhere, benefits them more than supplicating to Allah in the mosque before dawn. They ridicule anyone who abandons their way to worship Allah alone. Many of them ruin mosques while building up shrines. Is this anything but their making light of Allah, His signs, and His Messenger, while exalting polytheism? When both have endowments, they hold the endowment devoted to polytheism in greater esteem, imitating the Arab polytheists whom Allah mentions in His words:
“And they assign to Allah a share of the crops and livestock He has created”—and the rest of the verse.
They thus give preference to what is dedicated to others besides Allah over what is dedicated to Allah, saying, “Allah is free of need, while our gods are poor.” When one of these people visits the grave he venerates, he weeps there and humbles himself