was disputed in this regard. This man assumed that travelling to visit our Prophet is like travelling to visit other prophets and righteous people. This is mistaken for several reasons.

First: His mosque is beside his grave, and travelling to it is prescribed by the revealed texts and consensus, unlike the case of others.

Second: It is not possible to visit him as others are visited. A person can only reach his mosque and perform there the acts prescribed for him.

Third: If our Prophet’s grave were to be visited as other graves are visited, the residents of his city would be the people most entitled to do so, just as the residents of every city are most entitled to visit the righteous people buried among them. Yet the early generations and the leading scholars of the religion agreed that the residents of his city do not visit his grave, nor even stand beside it to offer greetings of peace when entering or leaving the mosque—even if this is not called a visit. Rather, doing so outside the context of travel is disliked for them, as Mālik stated, explaining that it is among the innovations that the earliest generations of this community did not practise. It follows that whoever considers visiting his grave prescribed in the same manner as visiting another person’s grave has contradicted the consensus of the Muslims.

Fourth: He forbade making his grave a place of recurring gatherings, and commanded his community to invoke blessings and peace upon him wherever they might be, informing them that this reaches him. Thus, singling out that place for supplication on his behalf is not prescribed. Rather, supplication is made on his behalf in all places and at every