Reviewing Ibn Teymieh's Point of View Regarding Visitation (Ziyarat) of the Tombs

The word Ziyarat means to have a desire for and in religious terminology means a special visitation out of respect to religious leader and elders no matter if these holy figures are alive or have passed away. Ibn Teymieh does not have a clear definition of Ziyarat. His definition is self contradictory. It seems that he has mixed up between the concepts such as Ziyarat and its meaning, heresy, misguidance and polytheism. He sees Ziyarat as something religiously predetermined and confines it only to greeting, praying for the departed and taking an example. According to the earlier and later scholars there are other parts to Ziyarat that he disagrees with. The scholars believe that Ziyarat can include asking for help from the departed, asking for pray and supplication etc. But he considers this kind of Ziyarat as heresy, misguidance and polytheism. He has set some limitation for Ziyarat that undermine the whole concept of it. The major evidence that he offers to consider the intention of traveling to three holy mosques of Al-Haram, Al-Nabi and Aqsa and other places as a condition or not is a narration known as Shado alrahal, roughly translated as fastening the provisions on the back of camel (getting ready to start a journey).Even if we can validate the chain of narration it will be difficult to accept this narration as a proof to his claim. Different factors that have misled Ibn Teymieh will be discussed in the present writing.