Three Shrines in Islam

 بِسۡمِ اللّٰہِ الرَّحۡمٰنِ الرَّحِیۡمِ

قُدُّوسٌ ‌قُدُّوسٌ ‌قُدُّوسٌ

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

Holy, Holy, Holy

The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said:

لاَ تُشَدُّ الرِّحَالُ إِلاَّ إِلَى ثَلاَثَةِ مَسَاجِدَ الْمَسْجِدِ الْحَرَامِ وَمَسْجِدِ الرَّسُولِ صلى الله عليه وسلم وَمَسْجِدِ الأَقْصَى

Do not saddle up (for a pilgrimage) except to three Mosques: The Sacred Mosque (in Mecca), the Mosque of the Messenger, peace be upon him (in Medina) and the Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) (Sahih al-Bukhari)

The delineation of this Ummah is in it being restricted to considering these three Mosques as its only shrines or sanctums to which a pilgrimage may be undertaken. To add to these three, or to subtract from them, is an extreme heresy. The Shi’ah are guilty of the former, having made the tombs of the Imams buried in various places at Iraq and Iran into shrines to which they offer pilgrimages. They go further by considering these tombs more sacred and holier than the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Another heretical sect, the Qadianis (“Ahmadiyah”) locate the Aqsa Mosque in Qadian, India and consider Qadian a holy place along with Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. Other heresies, associated with Hadith-rejecters like Ghulam Ahmad Parwez, Dr. Rashad Khalifa and Muhammad Shaikh deny the holiness and status of the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem (they tend to identify the Aqsa Mosque with the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina).

The evil king Jeroboam set up shrines in Bethel and Dan to rival the Temple in Jerusalem. While the shrine in Dan was destroyed by the Assyrians during their conquest of the northern Kingdom of Israel, the one in Bethel was finally destroyed by the righteous King Josiah of the Kingdom of Judah. A strange story is mentioned in the Bible about a Prophet from Judah who was raised up by God to preach against this false shrine in Bethel: “And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the Lord unto Bethel: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. And he cried against the altar in the word of the Lord, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee. And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the Lord hath spoken; Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out. And it came to pass, when king Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, which had cried against the altar in Bethel, that he put forth his hand from the altar, saying, Lay hold on him. And his hand, which he put forth against him, dried up, so that he could not pull it in again to him. The altar also was rent, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the Lord. And the king answered and said unto the man of God, Intreat now the face of the Lord thy God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored me again. And the man of God besought the Lord, and the king's hand was restored him again, and became as it was before. And the king said unto the man of God, Come home with me, and refresh thyself, and I will give thee a reward. And the man of God said unto the king, If thou wilt give me half thine house, I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place: For so was it charged me by the word of the Lord, saying, Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest. So he went another way, and returned not by the way that he came to Bethel. Now there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel; and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel: the words which he had spoken unto the king, them they told also to their father. And their father said unto them, What way went he? For his sons had seen what way the man of God went, which came from Judah. And he said unto his sons, Saddle me the ass. So they saddled him the ass: and he rode thereon, And went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak: and he said unto him, Art thou the man of God that camest from Judah? And he said, I am. Then he said unto him, Come home with me, and eat bread. And he said, I may not return with thee, nor go in with thee: neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place: For it was said to me by the word of the Lord, Thou shalt eat no bread nor drink water there, nor turn again to go by the way that thou camest. He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him. So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank water. And it came to pass, as they sat at the table, that the word of the Lord came unto the prophet that brought him back: And he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the Lord, and hast not kept the commandment which the Lord thy God commanded thee, But camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place, of the which the Lord did say to thee, Eat no bread, and drink no water; thy carcase shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers. And it came to pass, after he had eaten bread, and after he had drunk, that he saddled for him the ass, to wit, for the prophet whom he had brought back. And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way, and slew him: and his carcase was cast in the way, and the ass stood by it, the lion also stood by the carcase. And, behold, men passed by, and saw the carcase cast in the way, and the lion standing by the carcase: and they came and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt. And when the prophet that brought him back from the way heard thereof, he said, It is the man of God, who was disobedient unto the word of the Lord: therefore the Lord hath delivered him unto the lion, which hath torn him, and slain him, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake unto him. And he spake to his sons, saying, Saddle me the ass. And they saddled him. And he went and found his carcase cast in the way, and the ass and the lion standing by the carcase: the lion had not eaten the carcase, nor torn the ass. And the prophet took up the carcase of the man of God, and laid it upon the ass, and brought it back: and the old prophet came to the city, to mourn and to bury him. And he laid his carcase in his own grave; and they mourned over him, saying, Alas, my brother! And it came to pass, after he had buried him, that he spake to his sons, saying, When I am dead, then bury me in the sepulchre wherein the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones: For the saying which he cried by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel, and against all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria, shall surely come to pass. After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places. And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the earth.” (1 Kings, Chapter 13, KJV) One is naturally curious as to why there was no rebuke for the old Prophet of Bethel who supposedly lied to the Prophet who came out from Judah to prophesy against Jeroboam. The latter was tricked by the former into disobeying God’s command for him, and suffered an ignoble death as a consequence. But moving on, we see the importance of delineating the shrines and sanctuaries without addition or subtraction for an Ummah. The Samaritans strayed in their rejection of Jerusalem while favoring Mount Gerizim. In the time of Jesus this controversy between the Jews and Samaritans, ostensibly divided on the question of the correct place to worship is mentioned in the story of the Samaritan woman: “The woman saith unto him [Jesus], Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:19-22, KJV). So Jesus judged the Samaritans wrong in this controversy when he said that they do not know what they worship whereas he and the Jews do know, and that salvation is of the Jews. So at that time it was the way of the Jews and not the Samaritans which was the right way, and the Messiah was raised up among them for this reason. The Jews were right because they centered their worship at Jerusalem, while the schismatics either rejected the centrality of Jerusalem or avoided it. While the Torah acknowledges the places of Bethel and Gerizim, but the will of God was gradually unfolded in favor of Jerusalem, to delineate the chosen people of that dispensation. Likewise, in the Ummah of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, for us there are the three Mosques, in Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. Rejecting any of these or adding to them is like a rejection or change of the Qiblah, which entails the establishment of a separate Ummah, while the Ummah of Muhammad is the final Ummah:

وَأَنَا آخِرُ الْأَنْبِيَاءِ ‌وَأَنْتُمْ ‌آخِرُ ‌الْأُمَمِ

I am the last of the Prophets and you are the last of the Ummats (Sunan Ibn Majah)

إِنَّهُ لَا نَبِيَّ بَعْدِي ‌وَلَا ‌أُمَّةَ ‌بَعْدَكُمْ

Verily, there is no Prophet after me and there is no Ummah after you (Sunan Ibn Abi Asim)

Therefore, the establishment of Najaf, Karbala, Mashhad, Samarra, Qadian or any other place as a new shrine, sanctuary or site of pilgrimage signifies the establishment of a new Ummah. The heretical Zikri sect are non-Muslim not only because they reject offering the Salah or Namaz, they also reject pilgrimage to Mecca and instead make pilgrimage to Koh-e-Murad, a mountain in Turbat, Baluchistan (Pakistan). The Bektashis are another non-Muslim heretical sect who have made Mount Tomorr in Albania their sacred site of pilgrimage. They make the ridiculous claim that the tomb of the martyr of Karbala, Abul-Fadl Abbas bin Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, is located at Tomorr, to which they offer an annual five day pilgrimage from the 20^th to the 25^th of August. They offer animal sacrifices to Abul-Fadl Abbas during this pilgrimage.

Therefore, we Sunni Muslims should be jealous for our three sacred Mosques and reject forcefully any notion of additional shrines and sites of pilgrimage.