Not everyone who acknowledges that Allah, exalted be He, is the Lord and Creator of all things thereby worships Him alone, calls upon Him alone, shows loyalty and enmity for His sake, and obeys His messengers.

Most polytheists admitted that Allah created everything, yet they still appointed intercessors, associating them with Him, and set up rivals to Him…

He—may Allah have mercy on him—went on to say: “For this reason you find among their followers those who prostrate to the sun, the moon, and the planets; they invoke them, fast and offer sacrifices for them, and seek closeness to them, then claim, ‘This is not shirk as long as we do not believe they control our affairs. If we treat them only as a cause and an intermediary, we are not polytheists.’ Yet it is indisputably known in the religion of Islam that this is shirk…” End of quotation.

I say: This is exactly what today’s grave-worshipers say. They draw near to the graves with various acts of devotion and claim, “This is not shirk, for we do not believe the graves create or govern; we have only taken them as intermediaries through whose occupants we seek nearness to Allah.”