and this is among the most obvious errors.

Another is his assumption that no scholar has held such travel to be forbidden; rather, that the respondent—if his report is accurate—has attributed this view only to someone who cannot be relied upon and whose dissent carries no weight. Yet this is Mālik’s explicit statement concerning the Messenger’s grave in particular, and it is the position of the majority of his followers and of the early generations and scholars.

Another is his claim that, apart from those whose views the respondent cited—al-Ghazālī, Ibn ‘Abdūs and Abū Muhammad al-Maqdisī—no one’s dissent carries any weight, and no one else should be consulted on this matter. Such a statement cannot be made even about any of the great imams. Rather, everyone’s statements may be accepted or rejected, except those of the bearer of the revealed Law. How, then, can such a statement be justified concerning people like these?

Another is that, when he sought to establish that the Prophet hears invocations from nearby and is informed of blessings and greetings of peace sent from afar, he did not mention the good hadiths on this subject found in the Sunan collections. Instead, he relied solely on a fabricated hadith:

“Whoever invokes blessings upon me at my grave, I hear it; and whoever invokes blessings upon me from afar, I am informed of it.”

This is narrated only by Muhammad ibn Marwān al-Suddī from al-A‘mash. He is unanimously regarded as a liar, and they unanimously agree that this hadith was fabricated in al-A‘mash’s name. Moreover, he has altered its wording. For the copy I saw had the following wording, marked as correct:

“And whoever