The Ruling on Ascending Mount Hira and the Mount of the Archers at Uhud
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The Shaykh : Now, if someone were to say: “So, we should not ascend Mount Hira to look at it?”
The answer is to say: Ascend. If you ascend merely to look and reflect, there is no harm. However, if you ascend to stay there for nights of a specified number, or to pray there, there is no doubt that this is a religious innovation (bid'ah) and that it is forbidden. As for a person simply going there to reflect and observe, and saying, “How did the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) isolate himself in this high, distant place to worship his Lord and practice asceticism?” there is no harm in that. Although ascending it involves great hardship, it is said that it is now easy, and I wish it had not been made easy, because if it becomes easy, the common people will assume that the intention behind it is required and prescribed.
The reader: “Then that leads to the harms that the graves have led to”
The Shaykh : Likewise, one of the most astonishing things we have seen is that people go to the mountain called the Mount of the Archers at Uhud and ascend it, and perhaps they make supplications there, and so on. This is among the strange things. In other words, a place where a sin was committed by the Companions is worthy of being treated as a place of nearness? Absolutely not; on the contrary, a person might even dislike seeing it, fearing that something might arise in his heart regarding the Companions who committed the sin in that place. But ignorance is a deadly disease. We ask Allah for safety. Yes.
The answer is to say: Ascend. If you ascend merely to look and reflect, there is no harm. However, if you ascend to stay there for nights of a specified number, or to pray there, there is no doubt that this is a religious innovation (bid'ah) and that it is forbidden. As for a person simply going there to reflect and observe, and saying, “How did the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) isolate himself in this high, distant place to worship his Lord and practice asceticism?” there is no harm in that. Although ascending it involves great hardship, it is said that it is now easy, and I wish it had not been made easy, because if it becomes easy, the common people will assume that the intention behind it is required and prescribed.
The reader: “Then that leads to the harms that the graves have led to”
The Shaykh : Likewise, one of the most astonishing things we have seen is that people go to the mountain called the Mount of the Archers at Uhud and ascend it, and perhaps they make supplications there, and so on. This is among the strange things. In other words, a place where a sin was committed by the Companions is worthy of being treated as a place of nearness? Absolutely not; on the contrary, a person might even dislike seeing it, fearing that something might arise in his heart regarding the Companions who committed the sin in that place. But ignorance is a deadly disease. We ask Allah for safety. Yes.