However, if a person makes a vow to travel there for a purpose that is merely permissible, such a journey is allowed and falls outside the present discussion.

The second reply is that this ḥadīth (1) itself conveys a prohibition, and a prohibition entails impermissibility. As for the reports (2) he cited concerning the visitation of the Prophet’s ﷺ grave, they are all weak by the unanimous judgment of the hadith specialists; indeed, they are fabricated. None of the reliable Sunan collections contain a single one of them, nor did any of the leading imams ever use them as evidence. On the contrary, Mālik—the imam of the people of Madinah—and his companions (3), who were the most knowledgeable about this question, disliked a man’s saying, “I have visited the Prophet’s grave.” Had that wording been familiar to them, legislated, or transmitted from the Prophet ﷺ, no scholar of Madinah would have disapproved of it.

Likewise, Imām Aḥmad—the foremost authority on the Sunnah in his era—when asked about the matter, could rely on nothing in this regard except the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah in which the Prophet ﷺ said, “No man greets me without Allah restoring my soul to me so that I may return his greeting.” (5)

Abū Dāwūd, in his Sunan (6), based himself on this report as well.