One of the ways by which Shaytan decieves some Muslims into associating partners with Allah is by tourism and respecting cultural sites.
It should be known that many cultural and tourist sites in Yoruba land are places of Shirk; places where the idol worshippers call upon false gods. Venerating those places in your heart is a Shirk in itself.
When the Prophet ﷺ returned to Makkah and became the authority, the first project he executed was the demolishing of all the idols that Quraysh worshipped besides Allah.
But people call themselves Muslims today, and they still believe in visiting Olumo Rock and Osun River as part of celebrating ‘Eid al-Adha. Allahu Akbar!
Where is our hatred for things that are worshipped besides Allah?! Do we not know that these Shirk sites are the most evil places on the earth?!
What if Allah wants to destroy the Mushrikūn and He destroys you among them?! Taking these rocks and rivers to be sacred is Shirk, stay away from it!
You can not be a Muslim until you have Imān bi Allah and Kufr bi Taghut (belief in Allah and disbelief in Idols).
The disbelief in idol entails that you hate Shirk and its people. And when you do not have this, you are not a Muslim yet.
فَمَن يَكْفُرْ بِالطَّاغُوتِ وَيُؤْمِنُ بِاللَّهِ فَقَدِ اسْتَمْسَكَ بِالْعُرْوَةِ الْوُثْقَى لَا انفِصَامَ لَهَا وَاللَّهُ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ
“Whoever disbelieves in Taghut and believes in Allah, then he has grasped the most trustworthy handhold that will never break. And Allah is All-Hearer, All-Knower.” [Baqarah: 256]
It’s part of Jaahiliyyah to take honour in the Shirk of the forefathers. Islam has liberated us from the darkness of worshipping stones and rivers. Islam has taught us that stones and rivers are non-living things, they can not benefit us with anything, and they can not harm us with anything.
Muslims should not attend excursions to places of Shirk, they must not promote tourism to places of Shirk. They must hate Shirk and places of Shirk. Allaahul Musta’aan.
Allah said:
وَالَّذِينَ اتَّخَذُوا مَسْجِدًا ضِرَارًا وَكُفْرًا وَتَفْرِيقًا بَيْنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ وَإِرْصَادًا لِّمَنْ حَارَبَ اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ مِن قَبْلُ وَلَيَحْلِفُنَّ إِنْ أَرَدْنَا إِلَّا الْحُسْنَى وَاللَّهُ يَشْهَدُ إِنَّهُمْ لَكَذِبُونَ
And as for those who put up a mosque by way of harming and disbelief, and to disunite the believers, and as an outpost for those who warned against Allah and His Messenger (Muhammad) aforetime, they will indeed swear that their intention.
لَا تَقُمْ فِيهِ أَبَدًا لَمَسْجِدٌ أَسْسَ عَلَى التَّقْوَى مِنْ أَوَّلِ يَوْمٍ أحَقُّ أَن تَقُومَ فِيهِ فِيهِ رِجَالٌ يُحِبُّونَ أَن يَتَطَهَّرُوا وَاللَّهُ يُحِبُّ الْمُطَهِّرِينَ
Never stand you therein. Verily, the mosque whose foundation was laid from the first day on piety is more worthy that you stand therein (to pray). In it are men who love to clean and to purify themselves. And Allah loves those who make themselves clean and pure (i.e. who clean their private parts with dust [i.e. to be considered as soap) and water from urine and stools, after answering the call of nature.
Look carefully at the two verses, Allah was talking about a mosque, and he warned the Prophet ﷺ never to stay or stand at that mosque because the mosque is based on Kufr (disblief).
If Allah warned the Prophet ﷺ not to stay in a mosque (which is supposed to be a place to worship) because it was built upon kufr, what do you say about a place that was basically built for associating partners with Allah?
That is from the Qur’an. Also from the Sunnah, it was authentically narrated in Sunan Abi Dawud 3313 that a man had vowed to slaughter a camel for Allah at a place called Buwanah, then he came to ask the Prophet ﷺ about it, then the Prophet ﷺ said:
هَلْ كَانَ فِيهَا وَتَنْ مِنْ أَوْثَانِ الْجَاهِلِيَّةِ يُعْبَدُ
“Is there any idol from the idols of jahiliyyah being worshipped there?” The man said, “No”.Then the Prophet ﷺ said:
هَلْ كَانَ فِيهَا عِيدُ مِنْ أَعْيَادِهِمْ
“Is that place a place of their festival”, the man said: “No”.
Then the Prophet ﷺ told him to fulfill his vow. The scholars of Islam explained that had it been that the man answered affirmatively to any of these questions, the Prophet ﷺ would have forbade him from slaughtering the animal there.
Shaykh ‘Abdurrahman bn Hasan bn Muhammad bn Abdilwahab commented on that Hadith that: “It contains leaving off imitating the Kuffar.”
Because if the Kuffar would slaughter their animals there or have festivals there, a Muslim who goes there to slaughter his own animal for Allah would resemble them, and he has added to the number of the disbelievers.
A person said, “Visiting does not mean believing in their beliefs. These things are manifestations of the greatness of Allāh as well as His signs.Osun river does not mix (two bodies of water), yoruba people decided to cook up stories regarding this, I don’t believe in this story and this does not stop me from going there to ponder over this signs. Same as olumo rock, you get to see large rocks sitting on smaller ones, they are all parts of the signs of Allāh. Moreover, siting these places is not to honour these beliefs but to see the wonders of Allāh.”
This is strange because both Osun Oşogbo and Olumo rock are where Mushrikūn from different parts of the world worship the stones and the tree, how will a Muslim add to the number of those associating partners with Allah with the evidence that the trees and stones are signs of Allah? Where is your dissociation from the people of shirk? Where is your hatred for the places of Shirk and your dislike of being seen therein?
And as for the claim that “stones and rivers that have been taken as partners can not be demolished because they are innocent of the worship”, the refutation is as follows:
What the person claimed is that idols that can be demolished are the ones built by people, as for the “Allah’s creations”, they should be left.
Firstly, whether the idols are carved with hands or just a tree, river or stone that is worshipped, all of them were created by Allah. All of them are creations of Allah.
Secondly, the illusion that the person wanted to create was that the prophet only demolished the Idols and didn’t touch trees and stones. This is indeed not correct.
Al-Lat that the kuffar would worship was a stone, while Al-‘Uzza was a tree. When Islam entered into Makkah, the prophet commanded the Sahabah to demolish these places. Al-Mughīrah bn Shu’bah and Abu Sufyan demolished Al-Lat while Khalid bn Walid cut the trees of Al-‘Uzza.
By what the Prophet ﷺ commanded his companions to do, we see clearly that trees and stones should be destroyed if they are be taken as gods by the disbelievers.
Also, Umar رضي الله عنه ordered that the tree of Bay’ah Arridwān should be cut off when he realized that people would intend that place to observe Salah. If this tree can be cut down because who of people who intend to observe Salah to Allah under it, what about the trees that are taken as partners with Allah?! This is a refutation of the one who said, “Why should I hate the mountains and rock and rivers because some people decided to worship them?”
Lastly, we should stop talking regarding the deen of Allah without knowledge. We should know the danger of Shirk and stay away from it. If anyone dies upon Shirk, Allah will not forgive him and he will be in Jahannam forever.
Everyone should learn Tawheed thoroughly. Tawheed is not what you just learn in 10 minutes. You need to study books of Tawheed like Thalathatul Usül, Al-Qawa’id al-‘Arba, Kitāb at-Tawhid etc. Bārakallahu feekum.
Abū Muḥsinah Mubaarak.
