…and that incense is burned around it in the month of Rajab—or at other times—in order to make people turn their faces toward it, along with other baseless claims that anyone familiar with Mecca knows to be pure fabrication. No one ever descends beneath the Kaʿba, nor is there any cavern under it.

Moreover, Muslims do not burn incense as an act of worship or sacrifice, as those before them once did; to them it is simply a form of perfume whose fragrance they enjoy. The People of the Book before Islam would present offerings that a fire from heaven would descend and consume, and they sometimes used smoke in the process. As for the polytheists who worship the stars and idols, fumigation is one of the foundations of their rites.

Indeed, the very existence of Mecca itself testifies to the All-Powerful Who acts by His will, power, and knowledge, as the Most High says:

“Allah has made the Kaʿba, the Sacred House, a standard for the people, and the sacred month, the sacrificial animals, and the garlands—so that you may know that Allah knows whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth, and that Allah has full knowledge of all things.” (Q 5:97)

Ibn ʿAbbas said, “Had people abandoned the pilgrimage for even a single year, they would have been given no respite.” For this reason, as the Shafiʿi jurists such as Qadi Abu Bakr and others have stated, performing the pilgrimage to the House each year is a collective obligation.

The point here is that once we understand that the stirrings that occur within human souls do not arise solely from the motion of the heavenly spheres—though some cause is indispensable—this proves the existence of angels and jinn. The earliest generations of the community, those who followed them in excellence, and the leading scholars of Islam all affirmed that devils whisper in the hearts of the children of Adam, sowing corrupt beliefs and urging the pursuit of desires, whereas the angels, by contrast, cast into hearts only truth and justice. Ibn Masʿud said, “There is a touch (lammah) from the angel and a touch from Satan: the angel’s touch is a promise…”