According to strict Moslem law, the erection of tombs and monuments over the graves of the followers of Islam is strictly forbidden. The orders of the Prophet, as given in the “Traditions,” are “to destroy all pictures and images and not to leave a single lofty tomb without lowering it to within a span from the ground.”[264] And yet, notwithstanding this ordinance which the reforming Wahabis have strenuously endeavored to enforce, the Mohammedans are noted for the magnificent monuments which they have erected to the memory of their distinguished dead. Many of their mosque tombs are the most gorgeous mortuary monuments in existence. But building tombs over the graves of the dead, contrary as it is to the spirit of Islam, is far less reprehensible than making them shrines or places of pilgrimage. “May Allah’s wrath,” said Mohammed, “fall heavy upon the people who make the tombs of their prophets places of prayer.” This malediction seems, however, to have fallen upon deaf ears for, as Hurgronje declares: Almost every Moslem village has its patron saint; every country has its national saints; every province of human life has its own human rulers who are intermediate between the Creator and common mortals. In no other particular has Islam more fully accommodated itself to the religions it supplanted. The popular practice was, to a great extent, favored by the theory of the intercession of the pious dead, of whose friendly assistance people might assure themselves by doing good deeds in their names and to their eternal advantage.[265] In Bagdad, the “City of the Saints,” the number of shrines is particularly large. They are frequented by pilgrims from all parts, who prostrate themselves before the tombs of the saints to whose shrines they often make liberal offerings and where the more devout pray and chant hymns for hours at a time. “The Moslem,” as Kuenen tells us, “seeks what his faith withholds from him and seeks it where the authority which he himself recognized forbids him to look for it.”[266] According to a widespread opinion the bodies of the departed Moslem saints are not supposed to undergo corruption. For it is a common belief, confirmed by countless traditions, that when the tombs of saints and martyrs are accidentally opened their remains have the appearance of being freshly buried: “their faces are blooming, their eyes are bright and blood would issue from their bodies, if wounded.”[267]