The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—said,

“Do not turn my grave into a festival.”

For the habitual practice of setting out for a particular place at a fixed time that recurs yearly, monthly, or weekly is, in essence, the very meaning of a festival (ʿEid). He therefore forbade that practice in both its minute and its significant forms. This is exactly what Imām Aḥmad earlier condemned when he declared, “People have taken this matter to extremes and multiplied it excessively,” and he cited what is done at the grave of al-Ḥusayn.

I have already noted (1) above that it is disliked to make an act of worship habitual at a specific time when no Sunnah establishes it—so how much more objectionable is it to make a particular place the object of habitual visitation at a particular time?

Included in this ruling are the practices carried out in Egypt at the grave of Lady Nafīsah (2) and others, and those observed in Iraq at the site claimed to be the grave of ʿAlī—may Allah be pleased with him—as well as at the graves of al-Ḥusayn, Ḥudhayfah ibn al-Yamān, Salmān al-Fārisī, and the graves of Mūsā ibn Jaʿfar (3) and Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Jawād (4) in Baghdad.