in their view, a practice he had instituted for them. Likewise, during the caliphs’ time and afterward, his wives would travel for Hajj, and then each would return to her home, as he had instructed them.

During the caliphates of Abū Bakr al-Siddīq and ‘Umar, the reinforcements from Yemen—of whom Allah Most High said:

“Allah will bring forth a people whom He loves and who love Him”—

would come in groups from Yemen to fight in Allah’s cause. They would pray behind Abū Bakr and ‘Umar in his mosque, but none would enter the chamber or stand outside it in the mosque to supplicate, pray, offer greetings of peace, or do anything else. They knew his Sunnah as the Companions and their successors had taught them. They also knew that the rights owed to him are inseparable from those owed to Allah, Mighty and Majestic, and that all the duties Allah has commanded and loves, whether owed to Him or to His Messenger, are enjoined upon those responsible for them in every place and land. Thus, sending blessings and greetings of peace upon him at his honoured grave is no more emphatically enjoined than doing so elsewhere.

Rather, a person is commanded to do so wherever he may be, either generally or on occasions that give it particular emphasis, such as prayer, supplication, and the call to prayer. No duty owed to him and no act of worship is more meritorious at his grave than elsewhere. Rather, his mosque itself possesses merit because it is his mosque. To believe that it had no merit before the grave was there—when the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and the Emigrants and Helpers used to pray in it—and that it acquired its merit only during the caliphate of al-Walīd ibn ‘Abd al-Malik, when he incorporated the chamber into his mosque, is to hold a view that no one would express