We have a group of people who have been praying the two Eid prayers behind the Muslim cemeteries for a long time

The questioner : This is a message received from the listener Awad al-Sayyid from Sudan. He says: “O honorable Shaykh, we have a group of people who have been praying the two Eid prayers behind the Muslim cemeteries for a long time. Recently, these people disagreed over this location, which led them to split. Part of them now prays in their original place, while the other part has taken the side of the cemeteries. Each group delivers its sermon in the sight of the other. Please provide information regarding the validity of that prayer. Is this valid? We ask for your guidance, may you be rewarded.”

The Shaykh : Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and I send prayers and peace upon our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and his Companions, and upon those who follow them with excellence until the Day of Judgment. As for what follows, before answering this question, I would like to offer advice to my Muslim brothers. It is obligatory for them to unite on the religion of Allah and establish it, and not to split in it, as Allah the Exalted said: And Allah Mighty and Majestic said to His Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him): And Allah the Exalted said: With these noble verses, Allah Glorified and Exalted is He forbade splitting and ordered us to establish the religion. He made clear that His Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) is free of these people who split. There is no doubt that this splitting harms Islam and the Muslims, and that this splitting is the delight of the eyes of the enemies of Allah, the disbelievers and the hypocrites. This splitting tears the Muslims apart, just as a violent wind tears apart old clothes. This splitting breaks the power of the Muslims and strengthens their enemies against them. This splitting leads to enmity and hatred among the Muslims, which is a matter that almost all prohibitions are based on, namely the cause of creating enmity and hatred. You will find the prohibitions in sales, and the prohibitions in some foods and drinks, and you will find their cause is keeping people away from enmity and hatred. This splitting in the religion of Allah undoubtedly leads to enmity and hatred, especially if the splitting is among students of knowledge in matters of independent legal reasoning where disagreement is permissible. These are matters of independent legal reasoning where disagreement is permissible, and it should not be that disagreement in them leads to disagreement in hearts, because this disagreement in hearts is contrary to what the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) were upon. The Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) disagreed in matters often, and yet their hearts were in agreement and did not differ.
And I give as an example the disagreement of the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) urged them, after returning from the Battle of the Confederates, to go out to Banu Qurayzah. He said to them: So they went out, and the time for the afternoon prayer caught up with them on the way. Some of them prayed it in its time, and some of them delayed it until they reached Banu Qurayzah, and they prayed after the time. None of them rebuked the other, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did not reprimand any group of them, and their hearts did not differ in this, because the hadith has a possibility of interpretation. For this reason, whoever looked at his saying: And whoever looked at the fact that the intended meaning of the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): is to hasten and speed up, and took the generality of the evidence obligating the prayer to be in its time, prayed on the way. So each has a direction.
Likewise, the matters of independent legal reasoning that exist among scholars to this day, if there is room for disagreement, it is obligatory that this disagreement not be a cause for disagreement in hearts. This is the advice I would like to remind my Muslim brothers of, especially some students of knowledge who take disagreement in matters of independent legal reasoning as a cause for estrangement and hatred.
As for the question asked by the questioner, I say: If the graves are directly in front of the direction of prayer of the prayer place, then it is not permissible to pray behind them, because it is established in Sahih Muslim from Abu al-Marsad al-Ghunawi that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: So it is not permissible to pray toward the graves, meaning that a person takes the grave as his direction of prayer. If these graves are in the direction of prayer of the prayer place, then it is obligatory to move the prayer place to another location, and the correct position is with the group that moved away from this location. It is obligatory for the other group to go and pray with them.
As for if the graves are far from the prayer place and are not considered directly in front of it, then there is no harm in praying in this location, especially if the location predates the graves. And it is upon the group that separated to return and pray with the other group. This is the ruling between the two groups. As for their splitting, these in one place and those in another place, until some of them can hear the prayer of some of them, while they are Muslims, this is contrary to what the Islamic Shari'ah requires.
And my advice to them is to base their matter on what I said: If the graves are separate from the prayer place and the one praying in it is not considered praying toward them, then it is obligatory for the group that separated to return.
And if the graves are directly in front of the prayer place and the one praying in this prayer place is considered praying toward them, then it is obligatory for them to move away from this prayer place and be with the group that separated, so that they may be one community, as Allah described them in His saying: Yes.

The questioner : May Allah bless you, O honorable Shaykh.