Mystery of the Shrine Revealed

A story stranger than fiction.

Let’s watch.

The shrine is located in the Ain Sokhna mountain region, in

Suez Governorate. For forty years,

it had been a destination for

the Bedouin tribespeople.

They went there to make votive offerings,

hoping to receive blessings and have their needs fulfilled.

The money given by visitors to the shrine of Sheikh Abu

Saree was collected in the votive-

offering box and was estimated

at one million pounds a year.

And that is where the dispute began

between two tribes in the region over

which of them had the right to

look after the shrine and collect

the offerings. The dispute ended in a clash

and confrontation.

The two tribes turned to a

customary mediation session

to settle their dispute. The arbitration concluded with

moving the shrine to another place, far from

both tribes. When the tomb was opened to retrieve the remains

and move them, everyone was shocked

to find that the remains were not

those of a person or a sheikh, but the head of

a calf. The shrine was demolished, and its

pieces scattered, scattering with them the ideas

and superstitions,

and the ignorance that had dominated

people’s minds for nearly forty years.

For forty years, people have directed prayers and worship

and vows and sacrifices to an animal's head, and raised

millions in its name.

You might think it's a joke,

but it's a terrifying truth aired by an

Egyptian state-run channel.

Brothers, Islam came to connect the

servant directly to his Creator

without an intermediary. And if My servants ask

you about Me, I am near. Does someone who is near

need an intermediary? If this Quran were

near me on the table, I wouldn't need an intermediary

to pick it up directly. But if it were on top of

a cupboard, or somewhere high, I might need help.

I'd need a ladder. And God is far above such comparisons.

God Almighty is near.

He needs no shrine,

no grave, no human being,

no saint, no righteous person.

Those caretakers around these shrines are just

deceiving you to steal what's in your pockets.

Worse still, they're stealing

your faith and your religion.

So when will you wake up? God knows how many shrines

are visited and circumambulated today,

with people asking them

for help, when all their graves contain is

the remains of an animal.

Reason is a blessing

and monotheism is salvation. Whoever entrusts their needs

to God has enough,

but whoever clings to another…

God entrusted him to the remains of a calf

or the head of a donkey.