through the obligatory, recommended, and encouraged acts that He, glorified and exalted be He, has prescribed through His Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Whoever worships through an act that is neither obligatory nor recommended is misguided. And Allah knows best.

The shaykh—may Allah have mercy on him—was asked:

Which is better: residing in Mecca, near the Prophet’s Mosque, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, near al-Aqsā Mosque, or at a frontier post to take part in military campaigns? And what of the reports attributed to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace:

“Whoever visits my grave is assured of my intercession,”

and:

“Whoever visits the House but does not visit me has treated me with disregard”?

Is visiting the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, recommended or not? Please give us a ruling; may you be rewarded.

The Answer

He replied:

All praise is due to Allah, Lord of all worlds. Guarding the frontiers is better than residing near the three mosques, as the imams of Islam have generally stated explicitly. Indeed, they differed concerning residence near these mosques: Abū Hanīfah considered it disliked, while Mālik, Ahmad, and others considered it recommended. Yet guarding the frontiers is, in their view, better than residing near these mosques. The early generations agreed on this, to the extent that Abū Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him, said: “Spending one night guarding the frontier in Allah’s cause is dearer to me than spending the Night of Decree in prayer beside the Black Stone.”

This is because guarding the frontiers is a form of jihad, and jihad as a category takes precedence over Hajj as a category, as recorded in the two Sahīh collections: “It is reported from the Prophet