except for the spot that encloses the body of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. The majority support their view with many proofs whose enumeration here would be unduly long; their proper place, God willing, is in the Book of Pilgrimage Rites within our legal treatise.

The most famous of those proofs is what Imām Aḥmad related: “Abū al-Yamān narrated to us; Shuʿayb narrated to us from al-Zuhrī; Abū Salamah b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān informed us that ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAdiyy b. al-Ḥamrāʾ told him that he heard the Prophet ﷺ, while standing at al-Ḥazwarah in the marketplace of Mecca, say:

‘By Allah, you are the best land of Allah and the most beloved land of Allah to me; had I not been driven out of you, I would never have left.’”

Imām Aḥmad also transmitted it through Yaʿqūb b. Ibrāhīm, from his father, from Ṣāliḥ b. Kaysān, from al-Zuhrī with the same wording.

Al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasāʾī, and Ibn Mājah likewise recorded it, by way of al-Layth, from ʿAqīl, from al-Zuhrī. Al-Tirmidhī judged it “sound and good (ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ).” Yūnus also transmitted it from al-Zuhrī, and Muḥammad b. ʿAmr narrated it from Abū Salamah b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from Abū Hurayrah, though—in my estimation—the report of al-Zuhrī is the most authentic.

Imām Aḥmad further said: “ʿAbd al-Razzāq narrated to us; Maʿmar narrated to us from al-Zuhrī, from Abū Salamah b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, from Abū Hurayrah.” He (Abū Hurayrah) said: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ stood at al-Ḥazwarah and declared:

‘I know that you are the best land of Allah and the most beloved land to Allah; and were it not that your people expelled me, I would not have left you.’”

Al-Nasāʾī also transmitted it through Maʿmar. Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Bayhaqī remarked: “This is an error on the part of Maʿmar. Some have narrated it from Muḥammad b. ʿAmr, from Abū Salamah, from Abū Hurayrah—this too is erroneous, and the correct version is that of the majority.”

Aḥmad likewise reported: “Ibrāhīm b. Khālid narrated to us; Rabāḥ narrated to us; Maʿmar narrated to us from Muḥammad b. Muslim b. Shihāb al-Zuhrī, from Abū Salamah, from one of them, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said while in the marketplace of al-Ḥazwarah:

‘By Allah, you are indeed the best land of Allah and the most beloved land to Allah; and had I not been driven out of you, I would never have left.’”