the ḥadith transmitted by Abū Salamah from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAdiyy ibn al-Ḥamrāʾ, who said: “I saw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ standing at al-Ḥazwarah, and he declared, ‘By Allah, you are indeed the best land of Allah and the most beloved land of Allah to Allah; had I not been driven out of you, I would never have left.’”
This ḥadith is authentic; it was related by the compilers of the Sunan and judged sound by al-Tirmidhī, Ibn Khuzaymah, Ibn Ḥibbān, and others. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr comments: “This is an explicit text bearing directly on the disputed point, and one ought not to depart from it. Allah knows best.” Many later Mālikī authors have in fact abandoned the contrary position.
He adds: This report has been taken as evidence that every prayer is multiplied in merit in the two mosques, whereas al-Ṭaḥāwī and others have already transmitted that the multiplication applies only to the obligatory prayers, in light of the Prophet’s statement, “The best prayer a person performs is in his house, except for the prescribed prayer.” One could reply, however, that there is no harm in upholding the ḥadith in its general sense: a supererogatory prayer offered in a house in Medina or Mecca would therefore be multiplied relative to the same prayer offered in a house elsewhere, and likewise if offered within the two mosques—though prayer in one’s home remains, in absolute terms, superior.
As for his words, “The finest journeys made on riding-beasts are to the Mosque of Abraham and to my mosque,” Imām Aḥmad recorded it through the route of Ibn Lahīʿah, who said: Abū al-Zubayr narrated to us from Jābir, in marfūʿ form. Ibn Lahīʿah was weak in memorization, and Abū al-Zubayr was a mudallis and has transmitted it with an ʿanʿanah. Even so, al-Haythamī remarks: “It was related by Aḥmad and al-Ṭabarānī in al-Awsat, and its chain is ḥasan (sound).”