Imām Mālik said in al-Mabsūṭ, “In my view one should not stand by the Prophet’s grave and make supplication; rather, he should offer the greeting and then proceed on his way.”

For this reason—and Allah knows best—the Chamber was intentionally built at an angle and given a three-sided form: its northern wall was not aligned with the qiblah, nor was its surface left flat.

The same purpose guided the builders even before the Chamber was incorporated into the mosque. Ibn Baṭṭah narrates with a well-known chain from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, who said: My father told me, “People used to pray toward the grave, so ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ordered that it be raised so that none would pray toward it. When the structure was dismantled, a foot with its shin and knee became exposed. ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz was alarmed, but ʿUrwah came to him and said, ‘That is the leg and knee of ʿUmar (ibn al-Khaṭṭāb).’ He was then put at ease.”

This is a continuing principle: the person who supplicates is only recommended to face a direction toward which prayer itself is recommended. Do you not see that when a man is forbidden to pray toward the east or any other direction, he is likewise forbidden to deliberately face it when making supplication? Yet some people, when they make duʿā’, deliberately turn toward the direction in which a righteous man happens to be—whether that direction is to the east