This chain of transmission is sound according to the standards of the Six canonical collections. ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) regarded it as reprehensible to turn the Prophet’s place of prayer into a recurring gathering-site, and he made clear that the People of the Book were destroyed by doing precisely this. The same position is held by Mālik and other scholars of Madinah, for they disliked visiting those mosques and historical spots in the city—apart from Qubāʾ and Mount Uḥud.

For a detailed discussion, consult Iqtidhāʾ al-Ṣirāṭ al-Mustaqīm.

The view we have preferred—that such visits are disallowed—concerns only the places where the Messenger of Allah prayed incidentally. As for the sites to which he intentionally went for prayer or supplication, visiting them for that very reason is a Sunnah, in imitation of him. Moreover, the prohibition we spoke of applies when no special journey is undertaken; but if one actually travels for that purpose, it is unquestionably forbidden, because the Prophet said: “Do not undertake a journey except to three mosques…,” a ḥadīth that will be cited, God willing.

As for the miḥrāb in the mosque, the apparent ruling is that it is an innovation, for we have found no evidence showing that it existed in the Prophet’s lifetime. I state this even though we are aware of Ibn al-Humām’s words in Fatḥ al-Qadīr: “Miḥrābs were built in mosques from the time of the Messenger of Allah.” Such a claim, however, requires a reliable chain of transmission and identification of which early ḥadīth scholars reported it, and it has already been rejected by someone more knowledgeable in ḥadīth preservation than Ibn al-Humām, for he said