Al-Bukhārī also signalled its soundness in his treatise Juzʾ al-Qirāʾah, and that view is the most persuasive.
Vocabulary of the ḥadith
• “Except the graveyard” (illā al-maqbarah): in Arabic the word that is exempted must be in the accusative; no other inflection is allowed, because the exception occurs in a complete affirmative statement. Maqbarah—with the bāʾ admissibly vocalised with any of the three short vowels—means the place of graves.
• “Masjid”: pronounced with the jīm either opened or broken; it denotes the place where one prostrates. It is derived from sajada (to prostrate, to humble oneself). Every site used for worship is, in that sense, a masjid.
• “Ḥammām”: with the ḥāʾ opened and the mīm doubled; plural ḥammāmāt. It refers to a bathhouse. Grammatically it is masculine, though it may be treated as feminine.
Points inferred from the ḥadith
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The entire earth is a masjid: wherever the time of prayer overtakes a Muslim he may pray. Many reports convey this meaning, among them the ḥadith, “I have been given five things that none before me was given: the earth has been made for me a place of prayer and a means of purification.”
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Prayer is invalid in a graveyard, that is, a burial place for the dead, because Muslim recorded 972: “Do not pray facing graves and do not sit on them.”
Ibn Ḥazm said: “The aḥādīth that forbid prayer in graveyards are mutawātir; no one may disregard them.” More than one critical scholar affirmed that the underlying reason is to block the means that could lead to worshipping those interred there.
Ibn al-Qayyim observed: “Venerating graves is one of Satan’s greatest stratagems by which he has deceived most people; none are saved from it except those for whom Allah does not will trial.”
Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn (Ibn Taymiyyah) stated: “The general wording of the scholars necessitates prohibiting prayer even beside a single grave, and that is the correct view. The funeral prayer held in the cemetery is an exception, because the Prophet ﷺ performed it there: it is purely supplication for the deceased and involves no bowing, prostration, lowering, or raising.”