on it, or to build over it. Likewise, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ forbade writing upon graves. Abu Dawud relates in his Sunan from Jabir that “the Messenger of Allah ﷺ forbade plastering graves, sitting on them, and writing on them.” Al-Tirmidhi said, “A ḥadith that is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.” Yet these people place marble or wooden plaques on graves and inscribe upon them Qur’anic verses and other words. He also forbade adding anything to the grave besides its own earth; Abu Dawud likewise reports from Jabir that “the Messenger of Allah ﷺ forbade plastering the grave, writing on it, or adding anything to it.” In spite of this, they load the graves with bricks, plaster, and stones. Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī said, “They used to dislike putting baked bricks on their graves.”

In short, those who exalt graves—turning them into festivals, lighting lamps upon them, and building mosques and domes over them—stand in direct opposition to the commands of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and are at odds with what he brought. The gravest of their deeds is to make graves into places of worship and to kindle lamps upon them, which counts among the major sins…

Here ends the words of Ibn al-Qayyim, may Allah have mercy on him, describing what the grave-worshippers had introduced in his time. Since then the matter has only intensified and grown more hideous. Anyone who objects is branded an oddball, an extremist, and one who belittles the saints. How strange that they flare up in defense of the saints—claiming that refraining from worshipping them diminishes their status—yet they show no jealousy when the right of Allah is violated by blatant shirk, nor when the right of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ is slighted by abandoning his Sunnah. There is no might and no power except with Allah, the Most High, the Most Great.

8 – Exaggeration concerning him ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ forbade excessive veneration and praise of himself—and all the more so of anyone else—because such excess leads to giving created beings a share of the Creator’s exclusive right, exalted is He. For this reason he said: “Do not over-extol me as the Christians over-extolled the son of Mary. I am only a servant; so say: the servant of Allah and His Messenger.” Recorded by al-Bukhari and Muslim. The word “itrāʾ” (overpraise) means to exceed the proper limits in praising him; in other words, do not praise me to the point of exaggeration