Is It Sunna To Visit Graveyards on Eid Days?
Hanafi Fiqh
Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Question
1) Is it sunnah to go to the graveyard every Eid? My family go to the graveyard every Eid as they think that we have to go every Eid. Is this an innovation (bidah)?
2) Can I go to the graveyard every Eid with the intention that it is not sunnah and that I never go graveyard and this is a time that I can go?
Answer
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful and Compassionate
Walaikum assalam,
I hope you’re doing well, insha’Allah. It is not a specific Prophetic sunna of the sunnas of Eid to visit graves.
It is a highly encouraged sunna to visit family and friends. [Ibn Allan, Dalil al-Falihin Sharh Riyad al-Salihin; Qari, Mirqat al-Mafatih Sharh Mishkat al-Masabih]
From this, in some lands, the scholars adopted and encouraged the custom of visiting the graveyard—which is a general sunna. The deceased, too, are family and friends.
A wisdom of this is also that many are otherwise negligent in visiting their deceased relations. It also serves to balance the celebration of the Eid days with some sober reflection.
See:
Should We Visit the Grave for the First 40 Days After the Burial?
The Length of Recitation in Tahajjud Prayer and Reading Sura Yasin at Graves
And Allah is the giver of success and facilitation.
Wassalam,
[Shaykh] Faraz Rabbani
Shaykh Faraz Rabbani spent ten years studying with some of the leading scholars of recent times, first in Damascus and Amman, Jordan. His teachers include the foremost theologian of recent times in Damascus, the late Shaykh Adib al-Kallas (may Allah have mercy on him), and his student Shaykh Hassan al-Hindi, one of the leading Hanafi fuqaha of the present age. He returned to Canada in 2007, where he founded SeekersGuidance to meet the urgent need to spread Islamic knowledge–both online and on the ground–in a reliable, relevant, inspiring, and accessible manner. He is the author of Absolute Essentials of Islam: Faith, Prayer, and the Path of Salvation According to the Hanafi School (White Thread Press, 2004.) Since 2011, Shaykh Faraz has been named one of the 500 most influential Muslims by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center.
