For this reason, more than one scholar has said that traveling to visit shrines is a sinful journey; and those among them who do not permit shortening the prayer on a sinful journey likewise do not permit it in this case—especially when such travel is called Hajj, works are composed about it, and those works are entitled The Rites of Pilgrimage to the Shrines. Some of these people even regard setting out for the shrines, making pilgrimage to them, and traveling to them as superior to performing Hajj to the Sacred House of Allah, whose pilgrimage Allah has made obligatory upon mankind.

This is an error into which those who go to extremes in venerating shaykhs and imams—whether affiliated with the Sunnah or with the Shi'a—have fallen. One of them may offer the obligatory prayer to Allah in his own home with a heedless, distracted heart and recite the Quran without reflection or humility; yet when he visits the grave of someone whom he excessively venerates, he weeps and humbles himself, submits and pleads, sobs and sheds tears—just as happens when he hears the whistling and handclapping practiced by the polytheists at the House.

Many of these people perform Hajj not because Allah and His Messenger commanded pilgrimage to the Ancient House, but rather with the intention of visiting the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—just as they visit their shaykhs and imams, and for similar purposes.

All the reports attributed to the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—concerning visiting his grave are weak—indeed, fabricated. The compilers of the two Sahīhs and the well-known Sunan collections included none of them, nor did any of the leading Muslim imams cite any of them as evidence. They relied only upon the report narrated by Abū Dāwūd from the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—that he said:

“There is no man