Is it permissible to bury a martyr in a mosque if he is known for piety and uprightness?

Eid Abbasi : From the previous questions, the following question: Is it permissible to bury a martyr in a mosque if he is known for piety and uprightness? And is it permissible to eulogize a deceased person or a martyr with verses of poetry?

The Shaykh : As for the first part of the question, that is a matter that is forbidden in Islam. Burying a martyr in a mosque, if it were prescribed, would have been more deserving of this prescription for the burial of the prophets. It is known by mass transmission from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that he strictly forbade burying the prophets, the awliya (close friends of Allah), and the righteous in mosques. When it was mentioned to him (peace and blessings be upon him) by Umm Salama and Umm Habiba, who were among the emigrants to Abyssinia, and when they returned and mentioned to the Messenger (peace be upon him) a church they had seen in Abyssinia, describing its beauty and the images in it, he said (peace and blessings be upon him): , and in another hadith in "al-Sahihayn" (the two authentic collections) as well: , and in another hadith: . The hadiths, as you pointed out, are mass-transmitted in this meaning. I had compiled a good portion of them in a specific book on this issue titled "Warning the Worshipper from Taking Graves as Mosques."
If the Messenger (peace be upon him) cursed those before us because they built their mosques over the graves of their prophets, he did so as a warning to us, as the Lady Aisha said in her hadith in "al-Sahihayn" after narrating the previous hadith: . She said: "He is warning against what they did." So the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) warned in these hadiths, in which he cursed the Jews for building mosques over the graves of their prophets and righteous people, warning against that. But a specific hadith came for this Ummah because there were among them those who interpreted those hadiths to mean that we have no connection to these hadiths; that those are the Jews, and those are the Christians, and they were cursed for building mosques over the graves of the prophets and the righteous, while for us there is no harm in doing that for the sake of seeking blessing, they claimed! So the explicit hadith came to specify this Ummah as well with that ruling of prohibition; where he said (peace and blessings be upon him): . Here there is no room to say that this report is about the Jews; this is a report specific to this Ummah, for it is the last of the nations, as that is authentic from the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him).
Therefore, it is not permissible to bury a martyr in a mosque; because the Messenger (peace be upon him) prohibited it absolutely, and that was in the context of blocking the means to harm, so that Muslims would not be afflicted with what those before them from the People of the Book were afflicted with, namely the exaggeration in the righteous they buried in their mosques. And we, with great regret, see that what the Messenger (may Allah's prayers and peace be upon him) feared would befall the Ummah has occurred in its like. We, despite the fact that we read in the book of our Lord: ; we call upon those buried in our mosques today along with Allah. The greatest example of that is the Great Mosque in Damascus, the Umayyad Mosque. There you will find the alleged grave of Yahya (peace be upon him), which is a Ka'bah for fulfilling the needs of those people who have not yet understood the oneness of Allah. So instead of intending this mosque and others to worship Allah alone and call upon Him alone, they come for this prophet buried there, they claim, asking Him what they ask of Allah (Mighty and Majestic), or what the believer asks of Allah (Mighty and Majestic). So the harm that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) feared from burying the prophets and the awliya in mosques, we have touched with our hands in this time and before it. Therefore, it is not permissible to build a mosque over a grave, and likewise it is not permissible to bring a grave into a mosque; because the result is one, and there is no difference between them except in an issue that has no relation to what we are discussing.
The mosque, whether it was built over the grave or a grave was brought into it, all of that is forbidden, and all of that makes prayer in this mosque forbidden. But the difference between the mosque being built over the grave or the grave being brought into the mosque from another angle is, as Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allah have mercy on him) said: A mosque and a grave do not coexist in the religion of Islam. A mosque and a grave do not coexist in the religion of Islam. If one is found due to ignorance or desire or similar non-prescribed purposes, one of them must be removed. Which one is removed, the mosque or the grave? It is looked at to see which one was the later addition to the other, and that one is considered the encroacher, so the encroacher is removed. If the grave existed and a mosque was built over it, the mosque is removed. And if the mosque preceded the grave, and then the grave was brought in, the grave is removed. And this encroachment is very clear materially; because if it is a mosque that was built previously, this mosque is an endowment for the prayer of Muslims in it. So when the mosque is built.

Eid Abbasi : The grave.

The Shaykh : So when the grave is built in this mosque, because of the grave, a space of two meters by two meters or more is fenced off and reserved; so this space is wasted, and Muslims cannot pray in it. And this is an injustice from the grave. Of course, the grave is not obligated, but those who did that are the encroachers, they are the rebels, they are the wrongdoers; so they are the ones obligated to remove this injustice and this rebellion to restore the mosque to its previous state. And if it is the reverse, there is a grave, and no doubt that this grave is in accordance with the Sunnah; meaning: the grave was placed in one of the Muslim cemeteries. This cemetery was endowed for burying the dead, not for prayer. So when a mosque is built over this grave, whether it is small or large, this mosque will take up the space of many graves. In this is injustice, fencing off, and narrowing the circle of the cemetery. In all of that is injustice; therefore, whichever of the two was before the other, the mosque or the grave, is removed, and the older one is kept.
This is while we observe today that the word "martyr" has become devalued, it has become cheap, to the point that a person who killed another unjustly and rebelliously, and this killer was assassinated, was considered a martyr. So martyrdom today is given freely, until it has been given in our history today, with regret, to some disbelievers from the Christians. And what is hidden and what you have forgotten, I think, is "Joumala Gamal School," is that not its name?

Another questioner : Yes, exactly ... .

The Shaykh : This is a martyr to whom martyrdom was given not only to a Muslim open sinner, but to one who does not believe in Allah and His Messenger. Therefore, we must not rush to use this word, which has a specific weight in Islamic sacred law, applying it to every person who appears to us to have died a martyr.
I am pleased with a hadith on this point, though there is a man in its chain who is poor in memory, namely 'Abdullah ibn Lahi'ah; were it not for that, the hadith would be authentic. It says: . It is a hadith narrated from the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him): "Often there is a slain man between the two ranks whose intention only Allah knows." Although I am mentioning this hadith to you while pointing out its defect, its meaning is very correct. Why? Because many of the fighters in the path of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) appear to have gone out to fight in the path of Allah, but their inner reality has been shown by many events to be otherwise; some of them went out not for jihad in the path of Allah. Their outward appearance was like that, but their intention was either to plunder and loot, or to obtain a woman who was in the town that the Muslim army had gone out to conquer, so his goal was to get that woman. This spoils the jihad of this Muslim, and he has nothing from his work except what he intended. So today, where is the martyr? We hope that we will be in an Islamic life so that we can offer as many martyrs as Allah (Mighty and Majestic) wills. But, unfortunately, this is what Muslims are afflicted with today, such that there are only a few in the outskirts of some Islamic lands, as we hear, and otherwise there are no martyrs. This is because a martyr is one who goes out to fight in the path of Allah under an Islamic banner, and this does not exist today, much to our regret. Therefore, the word "martyrdom" today is a name without a body, having no reality. We must keep these facts in mind.
Other than that?