built on land taken from the road?”

He replied: “I disapprove of praying in it unless it has the ruler’s permission.” Here, then, he made the ruler’s permission a condition of permissibility.

Ismā‘īl’s questions to Ahmad came later than those of Ibn al-Hakam. Ibn al-Hakam had accompanied Ahmad early on and died about twenty years before him. Ismā‘īl, however, had followed the approach of the adherents of juristic reasoning before adopting that of the scholars of hadith. He questioned Ahmad later in his life, and also questioned Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd al-Hāshimī and other scholars of hadith.

Sulaymān was ranked alongside Ahmad, to the point that al-Shāfi‘ī said: “In Baghdad, I saw no one sounder in judgment than these two men: Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd al-Hāshimī.”

Those who recognize a third report on this question derived it from Ahmad’s statement, as transmitted by al-Mardhawī: “The ruling concerning these mosques that have been built in the road is that they must be demolished.”

Muhammad ibn Yahyā al-Kahhāl said:

“I asked Ahmad: ‘What if a man extends a mosque onto part of the road?’

“He replied: ‘One should not pray in it.’”

Those who do not recognize a third report say that Ahmad was referring here to mosques that narrowed the road and harmed the Muslims. There is undoubtedly no permission to build such mosques. This interpretation reconciles his recorded statements, which is preferable to treating them as contradictory.

Even more significantly, Ahmad permits replacing a mosque with another when doing so serves the public interest, as the Companions did.

Sālih ibn Ahmad said:

“I said to my father: ‘A mosque falls into ruin