is said to them, and all kinds of requests are made of them in a variety of languages. In the imagination of those who seek their help, these deceased saints know every language on earth and can distinguish one tongue from another—even when several are spoken at the very same moment! This is outright shirk in Allah’s attributes, a fact that many people ignore and that has led them into this grave misguidance.

Many Qur’anic verses invalidate and rebut this notion. Among them is His saying: “Say, ‘Call upon those you claim besides Him; they possess no power to remove your affliction, nor to shift it elsewhere.’” 1 Numerous other passages tackle the same issue, and a host of books and treatises have been written to explain it. 2 Whoever remains in doubt should consult those works; Allah willing, the truth will become clear to him. Yet I have come across statements from some Hanafi scholars that I consider beneficial to reproduce here, lest anyone suppose that none of the recognized legal schools share the position we have advanced.

Shaykh Abu al-Tayyib Shams al-Haqq al-ʿAzimabadi said in al-Taʿlīq al-Mughnī ʿalā Sunan al-Dāraquṭnī (pp. 520–521):

“Among the most repugnant abominations, the gravest bidʿa (religious innovation), and the worst of newly-invented practices is what the people of innovation have become accustomed to: invoking Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī with the words, ‘O Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī, grant something for the sake of Allah,’ and offering prayers—upside-down, as it were—toward Baghdad…"