Seeking Blessing from the Land of Graves and Their Inhabitants
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Fatwa Number ( 5339 ):
Q: In our homeland, a celebration is held around the grave of a righteous man every year, and this is referred to as a "wedding." It is attributed to a man among the awliya (close friends of Allah) the Exalted, and the purpose is to convey reward to the soul of the deceased. Cattle and sheep are slaughtered in this proximity, and the participating visitors are fed. It is hoped that through this proximity, one draws near to Allah the Exalted by seeking nearness to Allah through the deceased. This "wedding" is not merely an invitation.
Among the actions associated with this proximity are: lighting up the attributed graves and decorating and beautifying them with colored lamps, and covering the flat graves with marble or cement and around them. People are invited, and the media and publishing outlets are called to attend. Incense is burned, and a birthday celebration for the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is held, and he is praised while standing and sitting with a loud voice. Songs of praise and eulogy are sung with musical instruments and without them, and this is called "Zikr Jali" (loud remembrance). The walls of the graves are touched, and it is claimed that there is a blessing in this work. The Qur'an is recited around the grave, and prayer is performed beside it. Gifts and money are accepted, and the amount is spent to build courtyards or houses for the visitors to stay in, or to build a house like a mosque on the grave or a mosque beside it. Among the visitors are men, women, and children, and they hope for the mercy of Allah and seek nearness to Him to provide them with children and wealth, and to remove distress, calamities, and illness, and so on. The heirs of the deceased, or the representative, or the organizer, or the servant, invite the visitors to pledge allegiance on their hands, following the way of the deceased. This is their goal, because the pledge of allegiance guides to the path of righteousness, and through all of this, they expect to seek nearness to the Great Allah and His pleasure. People travel long distances to visit the grave, and visitors travel to the edges of the country and beyond the borders to have their pictures printed in the newspapers and to inform people of their arrival, for example: "The servant of Ajmer Sharif in India so-and-so.. from Daka or Karachi ." They urge people to hasten in giving gifts
and currencies, and they seek to receive gifts from the two deputies before they leave. The gifts they give people are flowers from the deceased's garden or his grave, or the land connected to his grave, and they send printed letters to people around the world, even to the holy capitals - Makkah and al-Madinah - (and I have seen some of them), and these correspondences were written to the Muslims in Bangladesh and Pakistan in their languages, and they are residents in Saudi Arabia for work, and the correspondences I saw were from a deputy ( Ajmiz al-Sharif ) in India who writes in the meaning of the rituals (al-Manasik), meaning: how and when to perform (circumambulation around the grave), how and when to open (the gate of Paradise), which is the last part of the grave, and so on, and refuge is sought in Allah (Mighty and Majestic) - the important thing is that they encourage people and warn them with these writings to send gifts and to send the addresses of their friends, whoever they are, and to be punished, so they do what they are ordered out of fear of punishment, and they think that they are doing well. My master: We have a large pond next to the grave of a righteous man (and he died seven hundred years ago and was a caller to Islam, known in history, and his name is: Shah Jalal al-Yamani (may Allah have mercy on him) in the region of Salamat , and in this aforementioned pond there are fish that they claim are sacred.. if any of the fish dies, they pray the funeral prayer for it and bury it, and in this region most people do not eat pigeons or are forbidden from eating them because they are attributed to that righteous man, and some people believe that they are
the property of Shah Jalal - so they are not eaten. Likewise, we have a sacred turtle and others as an endowment. We weep. In our year, and in this week, a strange thing happened, and we warned about this greatly. A person (who follows a man about whom we know nothing) announced (that he wants a wedding for his Shaykh). So he imported 25 camels from Pakistan (the camel is a strange, rare animal in our land, and we read about it in stories of the deserts and the Arabs) and bought thousands of cattle and sheep. The animals were housed in the exhibitions in the capital for people to see. All these animals were (sacrificial offerings) (with a local banner and necklace). People's hearts were captivated by them, so they led the camels to their place, and the tanks (with two turrets) and cars ran in front of and behind them in rows with full military precaution. So hundreds of thousands of the common people and the elite participated in the (wedding), including a large number of the leaders of the country and the senior officials, both civilian and military, in the government and outside it, who were among those who traveled to the wedding gathering, which lasted three days and nights, by cars and helicopters. They pledged allegiance to the people on the hand of the representative guide. And this action, by Allah, is destructive; we have not seen it before, so we fear, and our faith is weak, and people are on the religion of their kings, or as it is said, "as you are, so will be your ruler." And I seek forgiveness from Allah, for Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. Minds and hunger continue to invent new graves in the farthest and nearest parts of the earth, and they call people to these misguided celebrations and encourage
people to spend money, and they inspire hope and fear with fabricated stories about the glory and greatness of the deceased and the supposed close friend of Allah, until trains and buses stop beside the graves, and people throw their money or greet the deceased. And these graves have become sources of earning and livelihood, and I seek refuge in Allah. So give us a ruling on all these matters in light of the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger and the consensus of the community, in detail, so that doubts are removed from minds. And Allah is the One who grants success, and upon Him is reliance. I call upon Allah to protect us from bad deeds and shirk (associating partners with Allah) and bid'ah (religious innovation), and to purify our hearts from false belief, and to guide us to worship Allah sincerely, turning to Him, and to guide us by the guidance of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in our homeland of Bangladesh specifically, and the lands of the Muslims generally. We are weak in religion and faith, and our lower selves are exposed. So advise us about the obligations in our mentioned religious crisis, and your fatwa is necessary, important, and urgent, considering the haste of the disbelievers and the devils toward disbelief, shirk, and bid'ah. And until now, we were among the heedless. May Allah forgive us and you?
A: These matters you mentioned are undoubtedly abominable matters, and they are innovations and misguidance that Satan whispered to weak minds and those with little insight, in order to divert them, through their followers who earn their livelihood from them, from the straight path of Allah, to which Allah guided the saved sect among the sects of this community. There is no
holding a celebration for the birth of a Shaykh or a Prophet or anyone else in Islam, and there is no slaughtering for other than Allah in Islam. Rather, this is major shirk (associating partners with Allah) that keeps one who dies upon it in the Fire forever. This is due to the saying of Allah Mighty and Majestic:[Al-An'am 6:162-163] the verse. And there is also no seeking blessing from the stones and soil of graves in Islam. This is one of the types of worship of their inhabitants and associating them with Allah Glorified and Exalted, and it is major shirk. There is no building on graves in Islam, or plastering them, or tiling them. Rather, that is what the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade. There is no performing any act of worship at the graves in Islam, neither prayer, nor recitation, nor slaughtering, nor distributing food, nor circumambulating them, nor anything else. What is prescribed is that they are visited for admonition and that supplication is made for their inhabitants. There is no seeking nearness to Allah through the dead in any way, neither through their status, nor their right, nor their selves. Rather, that is from the innovations and from the means of shirk. Seeking nearness to Allah is only through the names of Allah Glorified and Exalted and His attributes, and His oneness, and faith in Him, and the other righteous deeds. And among the evidence for what we mentioned regarding the prohibition of seeking blessing from the land of graves and their inhabitants, and that it is major shirk, is what was narrated by al-Tirmidhi and others with a sound chain from Abu Waqid al-Laythi who said: . And success is from Allah. And may Allah send prayers and blessings upon our Prophet Muhammad, and his family and his companions.
Q: In our homeland, a celebration is held around the grave of a righteous man every year, and this is referred to as a "wedding." It is attributed to a man among the awliya (close friends of Allah) the Exalted, and the purpose is to convey reward to the soul of the deceased. Cattle and sheep are slaughtered in this proximity, and the participating visitors are fed. It is hoped that through this proximity, one draws near to Allah the Exalted by seeking nearness to Allah through the deceased. This "wedding" is not merely an invitation.
Among the actions associated with this proximity are: lighting up the attributed graves and decorating and beautifying them with colored lamps, and covering the flat graves with marble or cement and around them. People are invited, and the media and publishing outlets are called to attend. Incense is burned, and a birthday celebration for the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is held, and he is praised while standing and sitting with a loud voice. Songs of praise and eulogy are sung with musical instruments and without them, and this is called "Zikr Jali" (loud remembrance). The walls of the graves are touched, and it is claimed that there is a blessing in this work. The Qur'an is recited around the grave, and prayer is performed beside it. Gifts and money are accepted, and the amount is spent to build courtyards or houses for the visitors to stay in, or to build a house like a mosque on the grave or a mosque beside it. Among the visitors are men, women, and children, and they hope for the mercy of Allah and seek nearness to Him to provide them with children and wealth, and to remove distress, calamities, and illness, and so on. The heirs of the deceased, or the representative, or the organizer, or the servant, invite the visitors to pledge allegiance on their hands, following the way of the deceased. This is their goal, because the pledge of allegiance guides to the path of righteousness, and through all of this, they expect to seek nearness to the Great Allah and His pleasure. People travel long distances to visit the grave, and visitors travel to the edges of the country and beyond the borders to have their pictures printed in the newspapers and to inform people of their arrival, for example: "The servant of Ajmer Sharif in India so-and-so.. from Daka or Karachi ." They urge people to hasten in giving gifts
and currencies, and they seek to receive gifts from the two deputies before they leave. The gifts they give people are flowers from the deceased's garden or his grave, or the land connected to his grave, and they send printed letters to people around the world, even to the holy capitals - Makkah and al-Madinah - (and I have seen some of them), and these correspondences were written to the Muslims in Bangladesh and Pakistan in their languages, and they are residents in Saudi Arabia for work, and the correspondences I saw were from a deputy ( Ajmiz al-Sharif ) in India who writes in the meaning of the rituals (al-Manasik), meaning: how and when to perform (circumambulation around the grave), how and when to open (the gate of Paradise), which is the last part of the grave, and so on, and refuge is sought in Allah (Mighty and Majestic) - the important thing is that they encourage people and warn them with these writings to send gifts and to send the addresses of their friends, whoever they are, and to be punished, so they do what they are ordered out of fear of punishment, and they think that they are doing well. My master: We have a large pond next to the grave of a righteous man (and he died seven hundred years ago and was a caller to Islam, known in history, and his name is: Shah Jalal al-Yamani (may Allah have mercy on him) in the region of Salamat , and in this aforementioned pond there are fish that they claim are sacred.. if any of the fish dies, they pray the funeral prayer for it and bury it, and in this region most people do not eat pigeons or are forbidden from eating them because they are attributed to that righteous man, and some people believe that they are
the property of Shah Jalal - so they are not eaten. Likewise, we have a sacred turtle and others as an endowment. We weep. In our year, and in this week, a strange thing happened, and we warned about this greatly. A person (who follows a man about whom we know nothing) announced (that he wants a wedding for his Shaykh). So he imported 25 camels from Pakistan (the camel is a strange, rare animal in our land, and we read about it in stories of the deserts and the Arabs) and bought thousands of cattle and sheep. The animals were housed in the exhibitions in the capital for people to see. All these animals were (sacrificial offerings) (with a local banner and necklace). People's hearts were captivated by them, so they led the camels to their place, and the tanks (with two turrets) and cars ran in front of and behind them in rows with full military precaution. So hundreds of thousands of the common people and the elite participated in the (wedding), including a large number of the leaders of the country and the senior officials, both civilian and military, in the government and outside it, who were among those who traveled to the wedding gathering, which lasted three days and nights, by cars and helicopters. They pledged allegiance to the people on the hand of the representative guide. And this action, by Allah, is destructive; we have not seen it before, so we fear, and our faith is weak, and people are on the religion of their kings, or as it is said, "as you are, so will be your ruler." And I seek forgiveness from Allah, for Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. Minds and hunger continue to invent new graves in the farthest and nearest parts of the earth, and they call people to these misguided celebrations and encourage
people to spend money, and they inspire hope and fear with fabricated stories about the glory and greatness of the deceased and the supposed close friend of Allah, until trains and buses stop beside the graves, and people throw their money or greet the deceased. And these graves have become sources of earning and livelihood, and I seek refuge in Allah. So give us a ruling on all these matters in light of the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger and the consensus of the community, in detail, so that doubts are removed from minds. And Allah is the One who grants success, and upon Him is reliance. I call upon Allah to protect us from bad deeds and shirk (associating partners with Allah) and bid'ah (religious innovation), and to purify our hearts from false belief, and to guide us to worship Allah sincerely, turning to Him, and to guide us by the guidance of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in our homeland of Bangladesh specifically, and the lands of the Muslims generally. We are weak in religion and faith, and our lower selves are exposed. So advise us about the obligations in our mentioned religious crisis, and your fatwa is necessary, important, and urgent, considering the haste of the disbelievers and the devils toward disbelief, shirk, and bid'ah. And until now, we were among the heedless. May Allah forgive us and you?
A: These matters you mentioned are undoubtedly abominable matters, and they are innovations and misguidance that Satan whispered to weak minds and those with little insight, in order to divert them, through their followers who earn their livelihood from them, from the straight path of Allah, to which Allah guided the saved sect among the sects of this community. There is no
holding a celebration for the birth of a Shaykh or a Prophet or anyone else in Islam, and there is no slaughtering for other than Allah in Islam. Rather, this is major shirk (associating partners with Allah) that keeps one who dies upon it in the Fire forever. This is due to the saying of Allah Mighty and Majestic:
"Indeed, my prayer, my rites of sacrifice, my living and my dying are for Allah, Lord of the worlds. (163) No partner has He
قُلْ إِنَّ صَلاَتِي وَنُسُكِي وَمَحْيَايَ وَمَمَاتِي لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ (162) لاَ شَرِيكَ لَهُWe set out with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) to Hunayn, and we were newly converted from disbelief. The polytheists had a tree around which they would gather and to which they would tie their weapons; it was called Dhat Anwat. We passed by a tree and said, “O Messenger of Allah, make for us a Dhat Anwat just as they have their Dhat Anwat.” The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Allahu Akbar! Those are the ways of the former peoples. By Him in whose hand is my soul, you said just as the Children of Israel said to Moses: ‘Make for us a god as they have gods.’”
خرجنا مع رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم إلى حنين ونحن حدثاء عهد بكفر وللمشركين سدرة يعكفون عندها وينوطون بها أسلحتهم يقال لها: ذات أنواط، فمررنا بسدرة، فقلنا: يا رسول الله، اجعل لنا ذات أنواط كما لهم ذات أنواط، فقال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: الله أكبر، إنها السنن قلتم والذي نفسي بيده كما قالت بنو إسرائيل لموسى: اجْعَلْ لَنَا إِلَهًا كَمَا لَهُمْ آلِهَةٌ
Source
www.alifta.gov.sa
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.