al-Mursalāt was revealed, and higher up the hill there is a structure people call “Masjid al-Kabsh,” and the like. The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—never legislated that any of these sites be singled out for prayer, supplication, or any other devotional act.

As for kissing them or rubbing one’s hands on them, the issue is even clearer, for the scholars know—by necessity of the religion—that such practices are not part of the law brought by the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him.

A number of authors of ḥajj manuals have written approvingly of visiting the mosques of Mecca and its surroundings. I myself once recorded that opinion in a guide I compiled in the earliest years of my life—before I had performed the pilgrimage—at the request of some shaykhs, gathering their statements from the words of earlier scholars. It later became evident to us, however, that all of this is among the newly-invented innovations that have no basis in the Sacred Law; the foremost pioneers from the Emigrants and the Helpers never did any of it, and the leading scholars and guides forbid it. The Sacred Mosque alone is the place we have been commanded to seek out for prayer, supplication, circumambulation, and other acts of worship. We have not been instructed to aim for any other specific mosque in Mecca, nor is it fitting that any mosque there be treated as its equal in any ruling. Whatever a person performs—prayer, supplication, or anything else—in one of those other mosques would be better for him if he carried it out in the Sacred Mosque; indeed, that is a prescribed Sunnah. To set out deliberately for any other mosque in Mecca in search of its supposed merit is an unlegislated innovation.

[The Mosques to Which Journeys May Be Undertaken]

The underlying principle is that only three mosques may be visited with the intention of traveling for worship, as is authentically established in the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections from the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—in the narration of Abū Hurayrah and Abū Saʿīd, may Allah be pleased with them both:

“Do not saddle mounts except to travel to three mosques: the Sacred Mosque, al-Masjid al-Aqṣā, and this mosque of mine.”

This ḥadīth has come through other chains as well and is sound by unanimous agreement of the scholars; thus it has been universally accepted.