of Islamic law.” This is the statement of someone who knows neither what has been narrated on this subject nor what Muslim scholars have said about it. Rather, he is like a Rāfidī (rejectionist Shiite) who says:

“Authentic hadiths have been narrated explicitly designating Alī as the imam after the Messenger of Allah, along with others of a lesser grade.”

It is well known that none of the hadiths mentioning visitation to his grave were included by the compilers of the authentic hadith collections, the authoritative Sunan collections—such as those of Abū Dāwūd and al-Tirmidhī—or comparable Musnad collections, such as the Musnad of Ahmad. Nor has any imam cited any of them as evidence. Moreover, he has not mentioned even a single such hadith, let alone identified the book in which it appears.

As for his statement that those reports which do not reach the degree of authenticity may nevertheless be cited as evidence, this would apply only if they were graded good according to those who divide hadith into three categories. This depends on knowing that they merit that grade. Yet the leading hadith scholars have not judged them to be so, and neither he nor others like him possess such knowledge.

Such an assertion is among the gravest instances of speaking about religion without knowledge and presumptuously tampering with the Sunnah of the Messenger of the Lord of all worlds: introducing into it, through ignorance and misguidance, what does not belong to it. How much worse, then, when everything narrated on this subject has been judged weak by those knowledgeable in hadith—indeed, they have judged it to be fabricated falsehood—as has been discussed at length elsewhere than in this book.

Another point is that he has failed to distinguish between the “religiously prescribed visitation” which the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, used to perform, and whose purpose is to supplicate for the deceased, as in the funeral prayer for him