invokes blessings upon me from afar, I hear it.” Yet its actual wording is: “I am informed of it.” This is also how al-Qādī ‘Iyād cited it from the Musnad of Ibn Abī Shaybah, and it was from him that he took it. Anyone who relies on such a fabricated hadith while disregarding the good hadiths recorded by the compilers of the Sunan collections is far removed indeed from people of knowledge and understanding.

If he has also distorted its wording, this is darkness upon darkness, akin to what the heretics did with the report:

“When Allah first created the intellect, He said to it, ‘Come forward,’ and it came forward”—and so on.

This is a fabricated lie. Yet they also distorted its wording, reading awwalu, with the nominative ending, whereas its wording is awwala mā khalaqa (“when He first created”), with the accusative ending marking an adverbial expression, as in the other reported wording, “when He created.”

Another error is his appeal to the consensus of the early and later generations concerning visiting his grave. He assumed that the response prohibited something upon which there was consensus. Yet the response explicitly stated that travelling to his mosque is an act of obedience by consensus. The same applies to the recommended acts it discussed that fall under what is called visiting his grave: invoking blessings and peace upon him; praying that he be granted al-Wasīlah and other blessings; bearing witness in his favor; praising him for the distinctions Allah has bestowed upon him; loving him, maintaining allegiance to him, supporting him and honoring him; and other acts that may fall within the meaning of visiting. All of this is recommended, and the respondent explicitly affirms that it is recommended.

The scholars have differed over whether this is to be called a visit. He mentioned their disagreements concerning those matters over which they differed, and their consensus concerning those upon which they agreed. Thus, he stated the permissibility of travelling to his mosque and visiting his grave insofar as this is established by the revealed texts and consensus, and mentioned some of what