This is in view of a report by none other than Ibn Taimia...

This is in view of a report by none other than Ibn Taimia that Imam Ibn Hanbal wrote a treatise on visiting the shrine of Imam al-Hussain ibn Ali (the grandson of the Prophet) at Kerbala with specific instructions for visitors.

Ibn Taimia commented on this that «people at the time of Imam Ahmed [ibn Hanbal] frequented [the shrine].»[^3] But the Wahhabi creed considers making a journey to a shrine for the purpose of visiting it a form of idolatry which deserve the extreme punishment of loss of life and possessions. In effect, they condemned Imam Ahmed, his contemporaries and early Muslims who practiced this ritual and condoned it as idolators who must be put to death and their possessions confiscated.

Furthermore, this Wahhabi decree must also extend to the Prophet who approved or performed this ritual. Their claim to be followers of Imam Ahmed is thus unfounded. The same argument applies also to their belief regarding asking for the Prophet's intercession. According to this, whoever asks for the Prophet intercession after the Prophet's death is committing a cardinal idolatry. They argue that by performing such an act, a person treats the Prophet as an idol and worships him instead of Allah.

According, they considered killing such a person and confiscating his possessions a religious duty.[^4] This Wahhabi doctrine runs contrary to the practice of asking for the Prophet's intercession performed by a large number of his prominent and early Muslims - whose requests, the subjects of these intercessions, were usually granted.

Ibn Taimia has confirmed this in his book Al-Ziara on the bases of evidence by several authorities including al- Baihaqi, al-Tabarani, Ahmed ibn Hanbal and Ibn Abi al-Dunia.[^5] Nevertheless, Ibn Taimia chose to go against these authorities by banning the call for intercession. Unlike the Wahhabi, however, he refrained from calling it a cardinal act of idolatry.

To repeat, if the Wahhabi doctrine regarding intercession is endorsed then all the and early Muslims who practiced it must be considered idolaters who deserve to be put to death. Not only those are idolaters, according to the Wahhabi, but also anyone who knew about this practice and refrained from opposing it and condemning those who performed it as heretics. These also must be executed and their possessions forfeited.

In the final analysis, all early Muslims deserve such a sentence leaving none whom the Wahhabi could regard as the model to emulate.