Building structures over graves — domes, mausoleums, mosques — is forbidden by clear Sunnah, and is one of the chief means by which idolatry entered earlier nations. The Prophet (ﷺ) said in his final illness: "Allah cursed the Jews and the Christians: they took the graves of their prophets as places of worship." — warning against what they did ([al-Bukhari 435](/hadith/bukhari/435), Muslim 529). And ''A''ishah said: "Were it not for that, his grave would have been made apparent — but it was feared it would be taken as a place of worship." The Prophet (ﷺ) commanded ''Ali ibn Abi Talib: "Do not leave any image but that you have erased it, nor any raised grave but that you have levelled it." (Muslim 969). Imam ash-Shafi''i said: "I dislike that any structure be built over a grave, or that it be plastered, or that anything be written upon it." The wisdom is that excessive veneration of the graves of the righteous is the historical pathway to shirk: it began with the people of Nuh — Wadd, Suwa'', Yaghuth, Ya''uq, and Nasr — who were righteous men over whose graves images were erected, and after generations they were worshipped ([al-Bukhari 4920](/hadith/bukhari/4920), on ibn ''Abbas). Whoever desires to honour the dead, let him do so by following their guidance — not by building over their graves.