He replied:
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds.
As for the claim that supplications are answered at the graves of the four aforementioned shaykhs—may Allah be pleased with them—it is of the same kind as someone else’s statement, “So-and-so’s grave is the tried-and-tested antidote,” and similar claims that supplications are answered at the graves of particular individuals.
Many people make such statements about certain graves. The grave in question may be known to belong to a righteous man from among the Companions, the Prophet’s household, or other righteous people. Alternatively, its attribution to that person may be false or unverified, as is the case with most alleged graves of prophets. The attribution may also be correct, yet the man himself may not have been righteous. All these cases occur in connection with people who make such claims, or who say that supplications are answered at a particular grave and that their own supplications were answered there, when in fact it is either the grave of someone known for sinfulness and religious innovation or the grave of a disbeliever. We have seen someone who supplicated and was then astonished when the truth about the graves was disclosed to him. We have witnessed various instances of this.
The fundamental point is this: the claim that supplications are answered at the graves of prophets and righteous people has no basis in the Book of Allah or the Sunnah of His Messenger. Nor was it stated by any of the Companions, those who followed them in righteousness, or any of the Muslim imams renowned for their leadership in religion, such as Mālik, al-Thawrī, al-Awzā'ī, al-Layth ibn Sa'd, Abū Hanīfah, al-Shāfi'ī, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and Ishāq