graves; now visit them, but do not speak offensively.’ His prohibition thus accorded with the meaning of the verse. Later, he permitted visiting them to take heed, not for ostentation and boasting, raising their mounds with marble, colouring them extravagantly, or building mausoleums over them.” These are Ibn ʿAtiyya’s exact words.

The point is that the scholars agree that he had forbidden visiting graves. He also forbade preparing fruit infusions in gourds, earthenware jars, pitch-coated vessels, and tar-coated vessels. They differed, however, over whether these prohibitions had been abrogated.

One group said that they had not been abrogated, because the hadiths establishing their abrogation were not widely known. This is why Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Bukhārī did not include reports establishing a general abrogation.

Others said that they had indeed been abrogated.

Some of the latter group held that the prohibition had merely been replaced by permission: visiting graves is permissible, not recommended. This is one position within the schools of Mālik and Ahmad. They argued that an imperative following a prohibition conveys only permission, as in the authentic hadith in which he, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“I had forbidden you to visit graves; now visit them. I had forbidden you to prepare fruit infusions in vessels; now prepare them, but do not drink anything intoxicating.”

Another narration reads:

“Visit them, but do not speak offensively.”

This indicates that the prohibition was intended to block the means leading to the objectionable things people used to say at graves. Similarly, preparing fruit infusions in vessels was initially prohibited because intoxicating strength could develop in them unnoticed, so that someone might drink wine without realizing it.