The Ruling on Visiting Graves and What Is Said During the Visit

The Shaykh: Praise is to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our own selves and from the evil of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide, and whomsoever He leaves to misguide, none can guide. And I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger , , . As for what follows:
Indeed, the best of speech is the speech of Allah, and the best of guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), and the worst of matters are their innovations, every innovation is a religious innovation, every religious innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire.
Therefore, visiting graves, based on the indication of this hadith, must include admonition and a lesson from the visit. This means that it is not permissible to visit graves for any other purpose; for example, wailing, crying, shouting, and using graves as gathering places, as they do in many Syrian countries and elsewhere; where they intend to visit graves on the first three days. This contradicts the purpose of the visit as you have heard; ; this is a reason explained in the hadith itself, in which the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) clarifies the objective of the command to visit graves after the prohibition of doing so. Likewise, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) clarifies for us the etiquette of the visit and what the Muslim says when he visits graves; he greets those in the graves by saying: ; so another narration regarding the legitimacy of visiting graves is supplication for the visitor and the visited, ; if the visit deviates from these two narrations, from these two matters—the lesson and admonition, and supplication for well-being and safety—then it is a non-legitimate visit, it is an innovative visit. This means, a fortiori, that if the visit becomes intended for seeking blessing, for seeking supplication from them, for calling upon them for aid; without a doubt, this is further and further from being such a legitimate visit; rather, it is an innovative visit involving shirk (associating partners with Allah).