Ibn Abī Mulaykah used to say, “Whoever wishes to stand so that the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—will come to him should place the lamp that is by the qiblah, at the head of the grave, directly above his own head.”

Ibn Abī Fudayk said, “I heard some of the people I met relate that it has reached us that whoever stands at the grave of the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—recites the verse, ‘Indeed, Allah and His angels send blessings upon the Prophet’ (al-Aḥzāb 33:56), and then says, ‘May Allah bless you, O Muhammad,’ repeating it until he has said it seventy times, an angel will call out to him, ‘May Allah bless you, O So-and-so; none of your needs will go unmet.’ ”

Someone might claim that this report from Ibn Abī Fudayk shows that it is recommended to make a deliberate supplication at the grave. Yet it provides no proof, for several reasons:

First, Ibn Abī Fudayk transmitted it from an unidentified narrator, who in turn said it was merely something conveyed from another person who is likewise unknown. Nothing whatsoever can be established on the basis of such a chain. Moreover, Ibn Abī Fudayk lived near the end of the second century AH; he was neither a Companion nor a Successor, nor even among the renowned followers of the Successors, such that one might claim the practice was recognized in the first three generations. Suffice it to say that the reliable scholars of Madinah transmitted nothing of the sort.

Another weakness is that an authentic ḥadīth records the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—as saying, “Whoever invokes blessings upon me once, Allah will bless him ten times.” How, then, can the one who says