Praise be to Allah in times of ease and adversity, Whose blessing has firmly rooted Tawhid within the innate nature of humanity.
Whoever supplicates Allah in distress shall find aid, while whoever seeks of other than Him shall be forsaken and broken.
What delusion has deceived those who supplicate the inhabitants of the graves, calling upon the dead in moments of hardship?
For Allah has designated supplication in the clear, decisive Surahs as an act of worship, and likewise did the Truthful Prophet in the transmitted reports.
Direct all worship solely to the Lord of the worlds, and refrain from directing any part of it to creation, which is pure polytheism.
Indeed, the decisive verses and preserved hadiths corroborate one another regarding its abhorrence.
Thus, whoever dies while associating partners with Allah in his deeds has suffered an irreparable fracture.
For polytheism is never accepted by Allah from anyone, and shirk is an immense, unforgivable sin.
Polytheism invalidates whatever good deeds once existed, and shirk is grave injustice, so be ever wary of it.
It veils the soul from all the gardens of Allah, and from the intercession of him who is like the guiding star and shining moon.
The polytheist tastes diverse shades of humiliation, entirely stripped of the garment of security and the robe of inner peace.
O you who approach the dead in times of affliction: you have missed the pure fountain, so drink from the bitter dregs of distress!
The dead cannot benefit those who call upon them even by the weight of a mustard seed, nor can they harm; how wretched is the one whose insight is blinded!
If the matter of guidance were in the hands of the Guide himself, he would have guided Abu Talib to the truth and ultimate triumph.
None of his Companions ever sought his aid after his passing whenever grave tribulations befell them.
If divine control belonged to 'Ali, he surely would have repelled death and protected himself from his wicked killer.
If divine control belonged to the righteous al-Husayn, he would not have tasted death at the hands of the tyrannical and vile.
When you ask, ask the Lord of all servants, just as the most sincere advisor to mankind instructed you.
Even the early polytheists, when affliction struck them at sea, did not associate partners with Allah, so take heed!
Yet some who claim Islam, if they fall ill or are shaken by calamity, call upon the dead buried in their graves.
How did such people fail to realize what even Abu Lahab understood of old through simple clear reason?
O you who call upon servants just like yourselves, will you not call upon their Creator in both hardship and ease?
O you who claim to take the dead as intermediaries, has Allah ever closed His door before the needy?
For He is the Exalted, Ever-Near, and Responsive; and whoever associates others with Him, Allah is utterly free of him.
Relying on intermediaries did not save your predecessors from the verdict of polytheism, as stated in the decisive Surahs.
They fully acknowledged that Allah was their Lord, and they were not merely worshippers of inanimate stones;
Rather, some of them worshipped prophets, yet the Chosen Prophet made no distinction between them in judgment and practice.
Nor did their worship of their Creator avail them, for the purity of deeds is erased by the filth of shirk.
O you who turn away to other than Allah's pure basin: your true share of purity lies solely in turning to Him and departing from all else.
He is the Refuge of the poor and the rich alike, freeing them from shirk in times of ease and adversity.
Fill my heart with sincere devotion, that I may thereby be among the most felicitous of men, finding my succor and ultimate victory.