Burying the Dead Inside Mosques

Question: In our village there lived a pious man. When he passed away, his family buried him in the small mosque where we perform the prayer—the very mosque he had built during his lifetime. They raised the grave about a metre, perhaps even more. Several years later, his eldest son demolished that small mosque and rebuilt it as a large congregational mosque, placing the grave in an isolated room within the new building. What is the ruling on this action and on praying in that mosque?

Answer: Erecting mosques over graves—or burying the dead inside mosques—is something that Allah, His Messenger ﷺ, and the consensus of the Muslims have forbidden. It is a remnant of the Age of Ignorance. The Christians used to build structures over the graves of their prophets and righteous people, as the Prophet ﷺ explained when Umm Salamah mentioned to him a church she had seen in Abyssinia and the images it contained.

He ﷺ said, “Those people—whenever a righteous servant or a pious man among them died—would build a place of worship over his grave and fashion those images therein. They are the worst of creation in the sight of Allah.” He also said, “The wrath of Allah is severe upon a people who take the graves of their prophets and their righteous as places of worship,” and, “Beware! Do not take graves as places of worship; indeed, I forbid you to do so.” Many other narrations convey the same warning from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.