by reflecting on their ultimate fate and the change in their condition; for the sound ḥadith states: “I had forbidden you to visit graves; now visit them, for they remind one of the Hereafter and make one disdainful of the world.”

2 – The innovated form of visitation is prohibited. It is the visit whose aim is to ask the deceased, to request that he remove hardships or fulfill needs; this is major shirk (idolatry).

Or the visit is intended for tawassul through the deceased’s person or rank, or for calling upon Allah at his grave on the assumption that supplication at graves is answered. This is a reprehensible, detestable innovation, and we seek refuge in Allah from it.

3 – The two ḥadiths show the legitimacy of greeting the dead among the believers and Muslims and of asking Allah to grant them well-being from the torment of the grave and the punishment of the Fire.

4 – They indicate the recommendation that a visitor to the graves recite this very supplication and greeting, for the Prophet — peace and blessings be upon him — offered it for the people of al-Baqīʿ and taught ʿĀʾishah to say it.

5 – When Islam and faith are mentioned together in one context, the basic rule is that their meanings differ: Islam is other than faith, and vice versa. There is no doubt that the cemetery contains both Muslims and believers, and the supplication is directed to them all; hence the pairing of the two descriptions.

6 – Shaykh Ṣiddīq ibn Ḥasan said in al-Sirāj al-Wahhāj: “In essence, visiting graves is an established sunnah: it reminds the visitor of death and the Hereafter, and that is its chief purpose and ultimate aim.

Whoever visits a grave—any grave—and performs at it something for which there is no sanction in the Book or in an authentic sunnah has opposed the purified Sunnah and reversed the matter.

Over long ages innovations and forms of shirk have arisen in this ummah’s practice of grave visitation, practices for which not even a weak proof exists, let alone an authentic one. These have led their practitioners into the abyss of disbelief. They have adorned graves and sought relief from their occupants, thereby bringing upon themselves the curse of Allah, exalted is He, and of His Messenger.”