Q: I hereby send Your Eminence this letter wherein I mention that I often (Part No. 7; Page No. 271) see a group of people who, due to following Janazah (Funeral) Prayer at a time when an obligatory Prayer is due, perform the latter Prayer in a place specialized for offering condolences, which lies in the middle of the graveyard of Azrinig, Al-Hufuf. On Wednesday corresponding to 13/2/1412 A.H., I went to the graveyard and entered the mentioned place, where I saw a carpet furnished at the entrance and followed with rows of the carpets of endowment, which meant that the place had been prepared for performing congregational Salah (Prayer). There are graves lying in the direction of the Qiblah (Ka`bah-direction faced in Prayer). I hope Your Eminence issue a Fatwa to forbid the Bid`ah (innovation in religion) of preparing the places of graveyards for performing Salah and to explain whether or not those who perform Salah there should make up for it. May Allah guide you and protect you in this world and in the Hereafter!

A: It is not permissible to allocate a certain place in the graveyard and mark it with a Mihrab (a niche in the wall that indicates the Qiblah), carpets or any other thing for offering Janazah Prayer, since this was not introduced in the Sunnah (whatever is reported from the Prophet), and it is feared that people might head for it to perform the obligatory and supererogatory Salahs therein, which is absolutely forbidden based on what is stated in many Mutawatir Hadiths (Hadiths reported by a significant number of narrators throughout the chain of narration, whose agreement upon a lie is impossible) regarding forbidding performing Salah in the graveyard to avoid temptation, preserve Tawhid (belief in the Oneness of Allah) and block the means leading to Shirk (associating others with Allah in His Divinity or worship). Accordingly, it is obligatory not to introduce such things in graveyards and to remove any such thing that exists there.May Allah grant us success. May peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Muhammad, his family, and Companions.