Answered by Shaykh Gibril F Haddad
Can a person travel with the intention for example of seeing the blue mosque in Turkey – although the prophetic hadith only mentions the 3 in Makkah Madina and Bayt al Maqdis? What have the ulemaa said regarding this subject?
Wa `alaykum as-Salam wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh:
Travel for learning and experience is a Qur’anic injunction and the Sunna of the inheritors of the Prophet (saws) since the earliest times. There is thawab in such travel for the student of learning, and istighfar goes for such a student from all creation beginning with the angels and down to the fish in the sea. The very stones of the Blue Mosque might be Ulema with a lesson to teach the attentive visitor who takes account of his time. The hadith of the three mosques concerns their exclusive thawab for Salat in each. Also, it means that if you make nadhr to pray in any of them, you must fulfill that vow, whereas a nadhr to pray in Umawi Mosque in Damascus, for example, can be fulfilled by praying in any other mosque. Also, as a general rule, prayer in those grand old mosques built by the pious Khulafa’ of old is preferred to prayer in smaller, newer mosques. Allah knows best,
Hajj Gibril