Allah’s wrath against a people who took the graves of their prophets as places of prayer.”

In Sunan Sa‘īd ibn Mansūr, it is reported that ‘Abd Allāh ibn Hasan ibn Husayn ibn ‘Alī ibn Abī Tālib—one of the Hasanī nobles, indeed the most eminent among them in the generation following the Successors, during the caliphates of al-Mansūr and others—saw a man frequently visiting the grave of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. He said:

“Sir, the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: ‘Do not make my grave a place of recurring observance. Send blessings upon me wherever you may be, for your blessings reach me.’ Thus, you and a man in al-Andalus are on an equal footing.”

When the imams sought to follow his Sunnah in visiting his honoured grave and greeting him, they looked for a reliable basis in his Sunnah. Imam Ahmad therefore relied on the hadith in the Sunan collections, narrated by Abū Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him, that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“No one greets me without Allah returning my soul to me so that I may return his greeting.”

Abū Dāwūd took this from Ahmad. He cited no other hadith concerning visiting his honoured grave, placing it under the heading “Chapter on Visiting the Grave.” Yet whether the hadith establishes the intended point is disputed and requires qualification, for Muslims agree that it does not support everything people call a “visit.”

The question remains concerning the greeting mentioned in it: does it mean greeting him at the grave, as those who entered the quarters of ‘Ā’ishah, may Allah be pleased with her, used to greet him? Or does it encompass both this and greeting him from outside the chamber? Those who cited it as evidence understood it to encompass both.