I am looking for the Hadith (with source) that one can make intention to travel to only 3 holy places, Masjid Al-Haram, Masjid An-Nabawi, and Masjid Al-Aqsa. Also, kindly explain what this really means. 1.How do you define ‘travel’? 2.Does this mean we shouldn’t travel to Madina with the intention of doing Ziyarat of the Prophet’s grave? 3.Then can we travel to do Ziyarat of anybody else’s grave? 4.How about going to a Masjid further away from our home because the Friday Khutba is worthwhile listening to or for the Saturday Bayaan at the Markaz.
The narration reported by the Prophet (peace be upon him) that a journey must be undertaken only for three mosques and no other mosques has a particular meaning. The meaning implies that if one travels to a mosque intending to receive more reward then there are only three mosques of such nature and that besides these three mosques traveling to any other mosque has equivalent reward. Hence, there is no reason why one should undertake the hardship of journey and travel far for a mosque because the reward of going to far-distanced mosque versus a close-distanced mosque is the same. Nonetheless, one would receive more reward for the distance covered in traveling. Besides that there is no particular mentioning that one cannot undertake a journey for any other reasons as well such as traveling for business, for seeking knowledge, for vacation, to visit the graves of the pious people all these forms of travel are fine. If someone has to travel to listen a lecture or to attend a program even though that might be in a mosque, as you mentioned in the third part of the question that you like to go to the mosque on Saturday s to listen to speeches, then this is fine. Similarly, traveling to visit the grave of the prophet is also a unique deed of its own and has nothing to do with the mosque. As a matter of fact most of the scholars suggest that if a person goes to Madina then he should go with an intention of visiting the prophet’s grave and this was a custom during the time of the prophet peace be upon him. The honorable umar bin abdul aziz may allah shower mercy on him used to send specifically a person every now and then to go and visit the grave of the prophet peace be upon him. Hence, one should travel to visit the grave of the prophet peace be upon him and also if someone wants to travel to the graves of noble people then there is nothing wrong.
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