the Companions, the Successors, and their successors. This practice was not prevalent during those generations whom the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, praised. Rather, falsehood and polytheism emerged after them. Thus, when Mālik was asked about a man who had vowed to visit the Prophet’s grave, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, he said:

“If he intended the mosque, let him go there and pray in it. But if he intended the grave, he should not do so, because of the hadith: ‘Do not undertake a journey except to three mosques.’”

Likewise, visiting the graves of the prophets and the righteous to invoke them, ask them to supplicate, or deliberately supplicate at their graves in the belief that supplications are more likely to be answered there was not known in Mālik’s time, whether at the Prophet’s grave, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, or elsewhere. If Mālik, may Allah have mercy on him, disapproved of a man standing for a long time by the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, to supplicate, then what of someone whose intention is neither to greet him nor to supplicate for him, but only to invoke him and ask him to fulfil his needs, raising his voice in his presence? In doing so, he offends the Messenger, associates partners with Allah, and wrongs himself.

None of the imams—neither the four nor any others—relied on any of the hadiths that some people narrate concerning this, such as their report that he said:

“Whoever visits me after my death is as though he visited me during my lifetime.”

Or the saying:

“Whoever visits me and my father in a single year, I guarantee him Paradise from Allah.”

And other such reports. None of the imams of the Muslims narrated this, nor did they rely