The thirty-eighth ground:

Going to the Mosque of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, making it one’s destination, and travelling there take precedence over going to his grave—were the chamber open—and travelling to it, by the consensus of the Muslims. The Companions used to attend his mosque five times each day and night, yet none of them entered the chamber beside it. They knew that he had forbidden them to take graves as places of worship or to make his grave a site of recurring gatherings or an idol. He had also told them:

“Invoke blessings upon me wherever you may be.”

Likewise, they knew that invoking blessings and peace upon him in the mosque was better than doing so at his grave. Everyone who travels for the visit actually travels to the mosque, whether he intends that or not. Travelling to the mosque is recommended by explicit scriptural evidence and consensus. In his answer, the respondent mentioned both the visitation agreed upon by consensus and that over which there is disagreement. These people, however, have turned away from enjoining what Allah, His Messenger, and the scholars of his ummah have enjoined, and from recommending what Allah, His Messenger, and all the scholars of his ummah love. They have understood the scholars’ words in ways those scholars did not intend.

For al-Qādī ʿIyād, whose words he quoted, explicitly stated what his imam and the majority of his followers explicitly stated: that it is not permissible to travel to places other than the three mosques. He did not say that making the grave, rather than the mosque, one’s destination is recommended. Rather, in reporting the scholars’ statements about the merit of visiting the Messenger, he made his intended meaning clear. He also related that Mālik disapproved of remaining there after offering the greeting of peace. This amounts to his disapproval of visitation as practised by most ordinary people. And these people