Allah is his best friend
📖Sahih Muslim 532 Jundub reported: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say five days before his death:“I stand acquitted before Allah that I took any one of you as a friend, for Allah has taken me as His friend, just as He took Abraham as His friend. If I were to take anyone from my Ummah as a friend, I would have taken Abu Bakr as a friend. Beware of those who came before you: they used to take the graves of their prophets and righteous men as places of worship. You must not take graves as mosques; I forbid you to do that.”
Description:
In one of his last teachings, the Prophet ﷺ gave a direct and powerful warning: do not turn graves into places of worship, like the nations before you did with the graves of their prophets and saints. Even though many people deny praying “to” graves, the Prophet ﷺ prohibited praying at them, because over time this leads to raising the status of the deceased, seeking blessings or intercession from them, and eventually falling into shirk , associating partners with Allah.
This prohibition is not about what someone claims they’re doing, but about what inevitably happens:
- Repeated visits with acts of devotion near graves normalize associating spiritual power to the buried person.
- People start supplicating “through” the dead, asking them to intercede or grant wishes.
- Communities build domes, shrines, and special buildings over graves — which become gathering points for rituals, candles, vows, and even sacrifices.
- This process leads to graves becoming centers of worship, just like what happened to earlier Jews and Christians, whom the Prophet ﷺ specifically warned us not to imitate.
- That’s why the Prophet ﷺ firmly said:
👉 “I forbid you to do that.”
How graves become places of worship – even if people deny it:
🔹 People pray at graves, believing it brings them closer to Allah.
🔹 They perform acts of humility and reverence, like bowing, weeping, or supplicating, in front of graves, which are acts of worship when directed to anyone but Allah.
🔹 They attribute special powers or blessings to the deceased, asking them for help or intercession, which is exactly what shirk is: directing worship or divine requests to other than Allah.
Quranic Support:
📖Quran 39:3
Unquestionably, for Allah is the pure religion. And those who take protectors besides Him [say], “We only worship them so that they may bring us nearer to Allah.” Indeed, Allah will judge between them concerning that over which they differ. Indeed, Allah does not guide one who is a liar and [confirmed] disbeliever.
Even if people say “we don’t worship them; we only seek closeness through them,” Allah rejects this justification. Worship belongs to Him alone without intermediaries.
📖Quran 18:110
Say: “I am only a man like you, to whom has been revealed that your God is only One God. So whoever would hope for the meeting with his Lord — let him do righteous work and not associate in the worship of his Lord anyone.”
Pure monotheism requires worshipping Allah alone without associating anyone, living or dead, as an intermediary.
Summary:
This hadith is a clear, final warning from the Prophet ﷺ: even praying at graves, while claiming not to pray to them — opens the door to shirk. Islam commands respect for the dead but strictly forbids turning graves into places of worship, preserving the pure oneness of Allah (tawhid) and protecting the community from the very path that corrupted earlier nations.