a means—unless they go to the mosque for the sake of the grave’s occupant, to invoke him, to supplicate through him, or to supplicate beside him. The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, therefore forbade setting aside this place even for worshipping Allah alone, lest it become a means of associating partners with Allah. An act that leads to harm and has no outweighing benefit is forbidden.

Similarly, he forbade prayer at the three specified times because of the outweighing harm involved: imitating the polytheists in a way that leads to associating partners with Allah. Deliberately choosing those times for prayer brings no outweighing benefit, since voluntary prayers can be offered at other times.

For this reason, scholars disagreed about prayers occasioned by a specific cause. Many permitted them at these times, and this is the stronger of the two scholarly opinions. When a prohibition serves to prevent a means to wrongdoing, an outweighing benefit warrants an exception. Prayers occasioned by a specific cause may need to be performed at these times; if they are not, the opportunity to perform them is lost, together with their benefit. They are therefore permitted because of their outweighing benefit. By contrast, prayers without a specific cause can be performed at another time. Prohibiting them at these times thus entails no loss of an outweighing benefit, while the harm involved warrants their prohibition.

If his prohibition of prayer at these times was intended to block a means to associating partners with Allah, lest it lead to prostrating to the sun, invoking it, and asking it for things—as do those who invoke the sun, moon, and stars and petition them—then it is clear that invoking the sun and prostrating to it are forbidden in themselves, and far more strictly forbidden than the prayer he prohibited lest it lead to invoking the heavenly bodies.

Likewise, when he forbade taking the graves of prophets and righteous people as places of prayer—thereby forbidding