may be obligatory or recommended, as when attending them for Friday prayer or congregational prayer. They agree that travelling to mosques other than the three mosques is neither obligatory nor recommended. Likewise, visiting graves in the prescribed manner is recommended and is a sunnah, whereas travelling for that purpose is neither obligatory nor recommended according to either group.

The respondent did not state a view of his own in the response; rather, he reported the views of the Muslim scholars and their evidence. These people attributed to him what he had not said and argued from matters that are not disputed. They erred in what they reported and understood from the words of those who had reported a consensus, and in the evidence they used against him, in very many respects. The point of this ground, however, is that the person who wrote on the response represented the respondent as himself holding this view and as having said, “Visiting the prophets is a religious innovation.” This attribution to him is false, and a ruling based upon a false report is invalid by consensus.

The second ground:

Both groups of Muslim scholars agree that travelling solely to visit graves is neither obligatory nor recommended. Yet these people declared travelling to visit graves to be a sunnah instituted by the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, did not institute travelling for that purpose for his community, nor did the scholars of his law say that travelling to them is a sunnah. They have therefore issued a ruling contrary to the Sunnah and consensus, and this ruling is invalid by consensus. For the respondent mentioned the two views concerning someone who travels only to the graves without also intending to visit the mosque: the view of those who permitted this but did not deem it recommended