When the authorities first laid asphalt on al-Muḥaṣṣab Street, the noted man of letters Ḥusayn Sarḥān published in the Saudi newspaper Al-Bilād an essay entitled “No Abṭaḥ from Today On.” In it he grew wistful, lamented the site’s disappearance, and reminisced about the old days and the evening gatherings held upon its soft gravel.

– Al-Abṭaḥ: another name for al-Muḥaṣṣab, as mentioned earlier.

Scholarly disagreement
The scholars unanimously agree that after the Prophet ﷺ had cast the pebbles at the stone pillars shortly after noon on the third Day of Tashrīq, he left Minā, halted at al-Abṭaḥ, performed there the Zhuhr, ʿAṣr, Maghrib, and ʿIshāʾ prayers, took a brief nap, then mounted his camel, went to the House, performed the Farewell Circumambulation, and set out for Madinah.

They differ, however, over the legal status of that stop: was it a devotional act that should be emulated, or did he merely rest there because it lay on his route, so that no particular virtue attaches to doing the same?

The majority maintain that stopping there is meritorious. Tarḥ al-Tathrīb states, “This is the view of the four Imams,” and we have already noted that Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim reports that Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUmar’s son all practiced it. Sharḥ al-Muhadhhab cites Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ: “Halting at al-Muḥaṣṣab is recommended by all the scholars. They concur that it is not obligatory and that whoever omits it incurs no liability.”

Other scholars, however, held that it is not a Sunnah. Tarḥ al-Tathrīb continues: “A number of the early generation rejected al-taḥṣīb.” Al-Bukhārī and Muslim transmit from Ibn ʿAbbās: “Al-taḥṣīb is nothing; it was merely a campsite at which the Messenger of Allah ﷺ stayed.” ʿĀʾishah shared this view, as the foregoing hadith shows, and among those who would not perform taḥṣīb when on Hajj were Ṭāwūs, ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabah, Mujāhid, ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr, and Saʿīd ibn Jubayr.