I said, “O Prophet of Allah, teach me what Allah has taught you and of which I am unaware—tell me about the prayer.” He replied, “Perform the dawn prayer, then refrain from praying while the sun is rising until it has ascended, for it rises between the two horns of Satan and at that moment the unbelievers prostrate to it. Then pray, for the prayer at that time is witnessed and attended until the shadow stands straight like a spear. Thereafter withhold from prayer, for at that hour Hell is stoked. When the shadow lengthens again, then pray, for the prayer is witnessed and attended until you perform the afternoon prayer. Then cease praying while the sun is setting, for it sets between the two horns of Satan and at that moment the unbelievers prostrate to it.”
3- From Jundub—namely Jundub ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Bajali—who said: I heard the Prophet ﷺ five days before he passed away, while he was saying:
does not actually mean it, for the very resemblance to prostrating before something other than Allah is sufficient to warrant the ban. See how the Sacred Law blocks imitation both with respect to direction and to time!
Just as the believer prays toward the qiblah that the polytheists face, he must never pray toward the object they worship—and this is even more reprehensible. The qiblah is a legal ordinance that may vary according to the different laws of the prophets, whereas prostration and worship of anything besides Allah are categorically forbidden in the religion on which all the messengers agreed, as the Almighty says: “And ask those We sent before you of Our messengers: Did We ever appoint, apart from the Most Merciful, any gods to be worshipped?” (Q 43:45).
(3) Reported by Muslim, 2/67–68; Abu Awana, 1/401, both in their Sahih collections; and by Ibn Saad, 2/2/35. Ibn Taymiyyah (p. 52) comments: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ described how the communities before us used to turn the graves of the prophets and the righteous into mosques, and he then—fa according to the manuscript, rather than ‘inda in the printed text—connected that description with the prohibition that graves are not to be taken as mosques, and he said: =”