a prophet, or a mosque or any other place—is neither obligatory nor recommended, according to the revealed texts and scholarly consensus. Travelling to our Prophet’s Mosque, however, is recommended according to the revealed texts and scholarly consensus. This is what the scholars meant when they said, “Visiting his grave is recommended by consensus.” This, then, is what the Companions, the Successors, and the qualified jurists who followed them agreed upon. All praise belongs to Allah.

The respondent has stated that this is recommended according to the revealed texts and scholarly consensus. His words therefore show that he follows the Companions, the Successors, and the qualified scholars who came after them, and that they are above sanctioning the unlawful or violating consensus—above agreeing upon misguidance or following the path of blindness and ignorance. Yet this objector and others like him among the ignorant have equated this journey, whose recommended status is established by the Messenger’s explicit statement and the consensus of his community, with a journey which, by the Messenger’s explicit statement and the consensus of his community, is established not to be recommended.

They have drawn an analogy between the two, whereas the respondent mentioned the two views only concerning the second kind: someone who travels solely to visit the graves of the prophets and the righteous. He also stated that, for someone travelling to the Messenger’s Mosque and to visit him in the prescribed manner, travelling there is recommended according to the revealed texts and scholarly consensus.

They nevertheless attributed to the respondent the view that he prohibits visiting the Messenger’s grave and travelling to it, declares this unlawful, and forbids shortening the prayers during such a journey. Thus they portrayed him as prohibiting the journey that pilgrims make to his mosque and as holding that anyone who travels there may not shorten the prayers. All of this is fabrication and slander.