This objector and others like him have treated journeys to the graves of the prophets as a single category. Then, when they saw that scholars had spoken of the recommendation to visit our Prophet’s grave, they assumed that journeys could be made to all other graves just as to his.

They thus went astray in several respects:

First: Travelling to him is, in fact, travelling to his Mosque, which is recommended by explicit textual evidence and consensus.

Second: This journey is to the Mosque, whether during the Messenger’s lifetime or after his burial, and whether before or after the chamber was incorporated into it. It is therefore a journey to a mosque, whether the grave is there or not. Travelling to a grave alone cannot therefore be treated as analogous to it.

Third: Some scholars disapprove of calling this a visit to his grave. Those who do not disapprove of that expression agree with those scholars on the ruling; their disagreement concerns only the designation. In the case of anyone else, however, it is indisputably a visit to his grave.

Thus, one who prohibits such travel may say: “I do not concede that travelling to visit his grave is even possible in the first place. No journey is to be undertaken for anything termed a visit to a grave. Travelling to our Prophet’s Mosque is not travelling to visit his grave; rather, it is travelling to worship in his Mosque.”

Fourth: This journey is recommended by explicit textual evidence and consensus, whereas travelling to the graves of the other prophets and the righteous is not recommended by either explicit textual evidence or consensus; rather,