and a route to cross through, while he left Abū Bakr’s little doorway open as an honor to him and a special distinction, for the two of them were seldom apart.

Ibn Kathīr records in his Tafsīr: “Some scholars disliked passing through the mosque unless one had a need for it and there was no alternative route.”

I say: Texts will be cited that indicate the permissibility of passing through the mosque, as will appear under the heading “Permissible Matters,” paragraph (1). The earlier censure should therefore be understood as referring to a genuine need and to rare occasions, in such a way that it does not lead people to habitually use the mosque as a thoroughfare. This is the reconciliation that has occurred to me, and I have not seen anyone else discuss it. Allah knows best.

C – Permissible matters

1 – Passing through it on occasion for a need, on the basis of the Prophet’s ﷺ saying: “Whoever passes through any of our mosques or marketplaces”—in another wording: “When any of you passes through our mosque or our marketplace”; and in yet another: “through a marketplace, a gathering, or a mosque”—“while carrying arrows, let him grasp their iron tips,” or he said, “let him clasp the heads of the arrows with his fist three times, so that he does not strike any of the Muslims with them.” In another narration: “Let him not wound anyone with them.”

This hadith is related by al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, Ibn Mājah, al-Ṭaḥāwī, and Aḥmad through the chain of Burayd (with a single bāʾ, the diminutive of Bard; he is Ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Burdah) from Abū Burdah, from Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī, with the second wording traced back to the Prophet. The first wording is reported solely by al-Bukhārī in one narration; the last wording is found in al-Ṭaḥāwī and, in meaning, in al-Bukhārī; and the final additional phrase is reported by the Two Shaykhs (al-Bukhārī and Muslim) and by Ibn Mājah.