Mystic Mantra: Shrines of learning

In various parts of the world, people of all faith, traditions go in large numbers to visit the shrines of Sufi saints and sages. In India, the most visited shrines are of the Sufi Hazrat Khwaja Gharib Nawaz Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer, Piya Haji Ali in Mumbai, Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi, Makhdoom Ashraf Jahangir in Kichaucha Sharif and Sabir Pak Kaliyar Sharif. The Sufi practice of visiting graves of saintly people, popularly known as Ziyarat, is an age-old tradition deep-rooted in many religions and cultures. It is believed to be an ennobling way to seek divine blessings and extraordinary virtues that greatly help in the purification of one’s mind, soul and heart.

The core objectives of grave-visiting in Islam are multifold, most notably, Taqwa (attaining righteousness and piety) and Tazkeer al-Akhirah (remembrance of the Day of Judgment). Visiting any grave, not just Sufi shrines, means inculcating spiritual inclinations, moral and ethical values. The grave-visitors are exhorted to thoughtfully look at the silent graves where all the buried ones, whether s/he was, in this world, poor or rich, white or black, member of an upper-caste or lower, weak or powerful, look like one family.

They all are buried with only three pieces of cloth. Thus, the grave-visitors are supposed to learn from them — to purge their minds and hearts of all diabolic evils and impulses, false pride, jealousy, greed, malice, avarice, etc. Stressing this spiritual aspect of grave visitation, Prophet Muhammad once said: “Visit the graves; for visiting them becomes the source of remembrance of Allah and the next eternal world.” The holy Quran has also reinforced the idea of visiting graves.

Going by some prophetic sayings, both Muslim men and women were prohibited from visiting graves and shrines in the earliest period of Islam. Actually, the Prophet had forbidden grave visitation or Ziyarat temporarily. Men were prohibited because, influenced by the superstitious customs of the pre-Islamic era of ignorance, they used to write inauspicious elegies and un-Islamic quotations over the graves of their dead relatives. Similarly, women were prohibited from visiting graves, as reported by Imam Tirmidhi, due to a tribal custom of pre-Islamic Arabia. That is, women would mourn and wail at the graves of their relatives and to inflict further pain, they would harm themselves  by cutting their hair and nails.

But after the advent of Islam, Prophet Muham-mad broadened people’s minds and their intellectual horizons so that they could rise above their pre-conceived notions and superstitions about the matters of daily life, including visiting graves. Afterwards, Prophet lifted the prohibition and encouraged his followers to visit the graves in pursuit of abundant spiritual benefits. Notably, he did not make any distinction between men and women while lifting his temporary prohibition. He issued a general permission for the common masses to go for Ziyarat.