The side niche is better than the central trench
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Q: Which is better, the side niche or the central trench? And what is the height of the grave?
A: In Madinah, they would sometimes make a side niche and sometimes a central trench, and the side niche is better; because Allah chose it for His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and the central trench is permissible, especially when it is needed. The hadith of Ibn Abbas:Sunan Ibn Majah 1554Da’if (Darussalam) is weak; because in its chain is Abd al-A'la al-Tha'labi, who is weak. And the height of the grave should be the width of a hand or approximately that.
A: In Madinah, they would sometimes make a side niche and sometimes a central trench, and the side niche is better; because Allah chose it for His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and the central trench is permissible, especially when it is needed. The hadith of Ibn Abbas:
The niche-grave is for us and the ditch-grave is for others.
اللحد لنا، والشق لغيرنا
Source
binbaz.org.sa
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.