Ahmad also transmitted the report—albeit in abridged form—through Muhammad ibn Jabir, from ʿAbd Allah ibn Badr.

A corroborating narration comes from ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUmayr al-Sadūsi. He brought a leather water-skin from the Prophet ﷺ after the Prophet had washed his face in it, rinsed his mouth, spat into the water, then washed his hand and filled the water-skin. He said, “Do not add water anywhere unless you first top up this skin with what remains in it. When you reach your homeland, sprinkle that spot with it and make it a mosque.” They did so, turning the place into a mosque, and ʿUmar said, “I myself have prayed in it.”

Al-Haythami remarks, “Al-Tabarani recorded it in al-Kabir and al-Awsat. ʿUmar ibn Shaqiq and his father are both mentioned by Ibn Abi Hatim, and he voiced neither criticism nor commendation about them.”

The hadith indicates that it is permissible to convert churches and the like into mosques, and by analogy the same ruling extends to other ecclesiastical buildings. Al-Shawkani observes, “Many of the Companions did just that when they entered new lands: they turned the locals’ places of worship into mosques for the Muslims and altered their prayer niches.”

Under the same heading is the report of ʿUthman ibn Abi al-ʿAs: the Prophet ﷺ instructed him to build the mosque of Taʾif on the very site where their idol had stood. Abu Dawud, Ibn Majah, al-Hakim, and al-Bayhaqi recorded it through the route of Abu Hammam al-Dallal—Saʿid ibn al-Saʾib narrated to us, from Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿIyad, from him.