his words; yet he quoted them poorly, shuffling sentences back and forth until the meaning was impaired and the very pitfalls we warned of became unavoidable. It also became clear—indeed, certain—that the exception he cited was taken from scholars who explained the ruling on the basis of impurity. Upon that premise rests the detail that al-Tahtāwī reproduces in his phrase (wa-sawāʾ kānat fawqahu aw khalfahu…) (“whether it was above him or behind him…”). He borrowed it from Ibn Ḥajar—meaning al-Haytamī—whose exact words are:

“The commentator hinted at the objection that praying by the grave of Ismāʿīl, peace be upon him, is disliked because it lies in a cemetery. He answered that the case concerns a cemetery that has been dug up, for the impurity thereby exposed. This reply overlooks the jurists’ statement that the graves of the prophets are excepted, so prayer there is never disliked, since they are alive in their graves. Even granting him that premise, his answer is still unsound, because the jurists explicitly deem prayer in a cemetery other than that of the prophets disliked even when it has not been dug up, for one is directly facing impurity; and facing impurity in prayer is reprehensible whether it be above him, behind him, or beneath the very spot on which he stands.” End of the citation from Mirqāt.

As for the evidence al-Tahtāwī adduces—following the Mishkāt commentary—about the superiority of praying at the grave of Ismāʿīl, peace be upon him, and at the graves of the seventy prophets, al-Qārī himself answers in that same commentary:

“The outline of the grave of Ismāʿīl and the others has disappeared, so it furnishes no valid proof.”

Even if we concede that it has not disappeared, that still does not show that the merit of the prayer stems from the grave itself. Have you not seen that the Prophet’s Mosque, in which a single prayer equals a thousand