591 – On the authority of Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī (may Allah be pleased with him): the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said,
“Mounts are not to be saddled except for three mosques: the Sacred Mosque, this mosque of mine, and al-Aqṣā Mosque.” Agreed upon. (1)
Lexical notes
• “lā tushaddu al-riḥāl illā ilā thalāthati masājid” (Mounts are not to be saddled except for three mosques): the passive verb “tushaddu” is reported with a ḍamma on the dāl when “lā” functions as a negation, and with sukūn when “lā” functions as a prohibition. The wording comes in the form of negation while intending prohibition—i.e. “do not saddle your mounts”—and the shift from open prohibition to negation urges the listener to abandon the act in a subtler yet more forceful manner. Al-Ṭabarī said: negation is more emphatic than an explicit prohibition, as though it were inconceivable to set out for visitation except to these places because of the unique distinction they enjoy.
• al-riḥāl (plural of raḥl): a packsaddle for a camel, comparable to a saddle for a horse. “Saddling” is a metaphor for travel because the two usually go together. The construction is an example of restriction in rhetoric, whose instruments include negation followed by exception, as here; the hadith restricts the permissibility of travelling specifically for the purpose of visiting a mosque to these three and no other sites.
• al-Masjid al-Ḥarām (the Sacred Mosque): grammatically, it can be parsed in two ways:
- In the genitive, as a substitute (badal) for “the three”.
- In the nominative, beginning a new clause.
• “wa-masjidi hādhā” (and this mosque of mine): the demonstrative pronoun is used for veneration. Because of it, al-Nawawī held that the multiplied reward applies to the mosque as it existed in his ﷺ lifetime, while others give precedence to the name itself.