Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said: “Whoever goes to excess regarding a prophet or a righteous man and assigns to him any portion of divinity—such as saying, ‘O master so-and-so, give me victory, rescue me, provide for me, I am under your protection,’ and the like—has fallen into sheer polytheism and misguidance. Such a person must be called to repent; if he repents, well and good, but if he refuses he is to be executed. Allah—glorified and exalted—sent the messengers and revealed the scriptures for no other purpose than that He alone be worshipped with no partner whatsoever, and that no other deity be invoked alongside Him. Those who call upon another being together with Allah—whether the Messiah, the angels, or idols—never imagined that these beings create creatures, send down rain, or cause plants to grow. Rather, they worshipped them, or worshipped their graves, or worshipped their images while saying, ‘We only worship them so they may bring us nearer to Allah’ ⦗1⦘ and, ‘These are our intercessors with Allah’ ⦗2⦘. Thus Allah, exalted be He, dispatched His messengers to forbid invoking anyone besides Him—whether as an act of worship or as a plea for relief…” End of the Shaykh’s words.
From this the specious argument of the grave-devotees is laid bare. They excuse their conduct by claiming they do not believe the saints share with Allah in creating, providing, giving life, or causing death; they merely regard them as intermediaries through whom their needs are met and their distress removed. Yet this is the identical pretext voiced by the idolaters of pre-Islamic times, which Allah recorded in His Book and refuted.
In fact, the polytheism of these latecomers has surpassed that of the early pagans. They cry out the names of the dead on every occasion, seldom mentioning Allah at all, for the saint’s name is ever on their tongues. The first idolaters committed shirk in times of ease but turned sincerely to Allah in hardship, whereas these people persist in shirk both in ease and in hardship. Imam Muhammad ibn Ismaʿil al-Sanʿani (d. 1182 AH) said:
How often, when calamity strikes, do they call her name
just as the desperate cries to the One, the Peerless!
O scholars of Islam! You are responsible for these lost and wandering flocks.