What is the ruling on the presence of the grave of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and his two companions inside the mosque, given the prohibition mentioned in more than one hadith?

The questioner: Then, my Shaykh, the correct observation—may Allah bless you—I was at a company today, and there is a man there who, whenever he sees me, says, "Come, O Shaykh. You Shuyukh, by Allah, you are driving me crazy by saying, 'What is the matter with it?' Naturally, he has a specific dress code, so I tell him about it, and sometimes I convey to him, 'We used to be like that, my brother, back in the day.'"The Shaykh : Now, we call you atThe Shaykh : The Shaykh :The Shaykh : Now, the time does not allow us to call him, and I say, "After 'Isha' prayer," and then the man makes excuses.
That is, there is confusion regarding the presence of the grave of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and his companions in the mosque, given the prohibition that came in more than one hadith. So here, there is confusion; he understands that there is a contradiction. Perhaps, my Shaykh, you can clarify it for us. May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : The matter is easy for me, but I wonder if the contradiction he wants to present can be depicted or illustrated.

The questioner : Yes, he says that it is mentioned in more than one hadith.

The Shaykh : Well-known hadiths. What is it that contradicts them?

The questioner : The presence of graves in the mosque contradicts them.

The Shaykh : The one who placed the graves in the mosque is the one who prohibited it.

The questioner : No

The Shaykh : So, what is the problem?

The questioner : The problem is, how did the Companions agree to the presence of these graves, knowing that this is not permissible?

The Shaykh : That is why I told you, I wonder if the one who has this problem can identify where his problem lies. How does he know that the Companions did that? How does he know that the Companions are the ones who placed this grave? How does he know? If a person speaks out of ignorance, and he has authentic hadiths, and he establishes a contradiction between his ignorance and the authentic hadiths, that does not hold up. Therefore, truly, these matters are not resolved through intermediaries. The man has a problem or a doubt; he raises his problem with Abu Faris. Abu Faris does not think to clarify with him what his problem is. Abu Faris comes and asks Abu 'Abd al-Rahman, "A man has a problem like this and that." Abu 'Abd al-Rahman needs to know what type of problem it is in order to answer him. I do not know now if this came from you or from him. When you raised the problem of how the Companions did this, the answer is: the Companions did not do this.

The questioner : So, it must have been, of course, some of the Tabi'un, and Allah knows best, or the Tabi'in of the Tabi'un.

The Shaykh : The one who did this was some of the rulers. The matter is as it happens in the end times: some rulers have power, they have authority, they have the state, so they do what they please and do not care whether it is forbidden or lawful. Generally, their aim is to satisfy their desires. Specifically, these desires vary; sometimes their desire is to please people, not to love people. To please people—today, in the Islamic world, as you all know, all the Islamic governments have deceived the Islamic world into believing that the Rock in Bayt al-Maqdis is a sacred rock. So, when the Jews struck it, they raised a commotion in order to collect funds to restore the Rock to a state better than it was. If you looked at this Rock, it is just a rock from any of the mountains surrounding us; it has no value. So, how was this money spent? How was this mosque built on this Rock? This is what the rulers say, and the people cannot do anything. If they wanted to return to the story of the so-called problem: the hadiths prohibit building mosques on graves. So, where was the Messenger buried when he died? He was not buried in the mosque. So, where is the prohibition? As long as he was not buried in the mosque, where is the problem? As for later, history—what did it do? This issue has to do with history, not with the Shari'ah.

The questioner : History clarified it, my Shaykh...

The Shaykh : It would not have been clarified; we have detailed this issue well, God willing, in my well-known book, *Tadhkirat al-Sajid 'an Ittiyadh al-Qubur Masajid* (Warning for the Worshipper Against Taking Graves as Mosques). Because, regarding the ignorance of people and their observation that it is the Prophet's mosque and his grave, and the meaning of this statement—the Prophet... and so on—they see the words of the Prophet contradicting reality. From here, your companion was led astray. But he is one of the common people who do not know the facts. When he (peace be upon him) died, his noble Companions differed regarding the place of his burial. Until Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (may Allah be pleased with him) entered upon them while they were discussing where to bury the Messenger (peace be upon him). He said, "I heard the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) say: 'No prophet has died except that he was buried in the place where he died.'" Where did the Messenger (peace be upon him) die? In the house of 'A'ishah. And the house of 'A'ishah is next to his (peace be upon him) mosque. So, they dug for him in the place where he died and buried him. And the people remained unable to approach the grave of the Messenger at all, because it was in the house of 'A'ishah. And the Lady 'A'ishah (may Allah be pleased with her) took her freedom in her house as any woman does, until 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) was buried in the same house, the house of the Lady 'A'ishah, next to her father, Abu al-Siddiq. After that, out of her etiquette, which has no parallel, she would cover her head, as if she were looking at a person who is alive, because he was killed as a martyr by treachery, as you know. And so it continued until the Lady 'A'ishah died, and all the wives of the Messenger died, who were in the chambers next to each other. And these chambers became, of course, for other people, until the time of al-Walid ibn 'Abd al-Malik the Umayyad. He ordered his governor in Madinah to expand al-Masjid al-Nabawi. So, he expanded it from the side of the chambers. They bought the chambers from their owners and took possession of them, and removed the partition wall between them and the mosque. In this way, the grave became in al-Masjid al-Nabawi. Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib (may Allah be pleased with him), when this incident occurred, wept because of this change and said to them, "It should have been left as it was, meaning separated from the mosque, so that when people after the Companions come, they can see where the Messenger was and where his wives lived in their houses. If you extended your hand to the length of the ceiling, and the ceiling is made of tree branches and clay on top."
So, the point is that this happened in the time of a ruler who was not one of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. He added this addition and committed the sin. And with the time, history does not separate, but without a doubt, every king who came after wanted to make an impact that would immortalize him among the people. The ignorant people, of course, built a room for it, this is good, this one built a dome, etc., until we reached this era that we see now. So, the issue has no problem. The Companions buried the Messenger outside the mosque in the place where he was buried, where he indicated by the words narrated by his companion in the cave, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, that he would be buried in the house. And the Lady 'A'ishah hinted at the wisdom of that by saying, may Allah be pleased with her, when she said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said, "May the curse of Allah be upon the Jews and the Christians; they took the graves of their prophets as mosques. And were it not for that, I would have exposed his (peace be upon him) grave, but I feared that it would be taken as a mosque."
What he (peace be upon him) feared happened, and vows do not avail. That is, 'A'ishah says about the Prophet that he cursed the Jews who built mosques on the graves of their prophets, and were it not for this fear that his Ummah would fall into what the Jews and Christians fell into, he would have been buried in open land. But this allows people to build a mosque on it. He was buried in the small chamber, and yet the administrators who do not fear Allah came and bought this chamber and raised all the walls, including the partition wall between the grave and the mosque.

The questioner : May Allah reward you, my Shaykh.

The Shaykh : Amen.