among the scholars, as has already been made clear (p. 60) and will be mentioned again. They differed only over whether the prayer itself is invalid. The apparent position of the Hanbali school is that it is not valid, and this was conclusively affirmed by the meticulous Ibn al-Qayyim, as noted earlier (pp. 56–60).

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah states in Iqtidaʾ al-Ṣirāṭ al-Mustaqīm Mukhālafat Aṣḥāb al-Jaḥīm (p. 159):

“These mosques that are built over the graves of prophets, righteous people, kings, and others must be removed—whether by demolition or by some other means. I know of no disagreement on this point among the well-known scholars. Praying in them is disapproved without any dispute that I am aware of, and, according to the apparent view of our school, the prayer is invalid because of the prohibition and the curse reported concerning it, as well as other hadiths. In this regard there is no difference whether only one person is buried there or several. Our scholars disagreed only about a cemetery that has no mosque built over it: is the limit three graves, or is it forbidden to pray by a single grave even if no other graves are nearby? These are the two reported views.”