The oldest cemetery of Islam
Al-Baqi, beside the Prophet's Mosque in Madinah, is the burial ground of four of the Imams — Hasan, Zayn al-Abidin, al-Baqir and al-Sadiq (a) — of the Prophet's (s) wives, daughters and infant son, of his uncle al-Abbas, of Fatima bint Asad and Umm al-Banin, and of hundreds of companions; Fatima al-Zahra (a) herself may lie there. Over the centuries domes and shrines were raised over the graves, and the cemetery was among the holiest places of pilgrimage for Muslims and above all for the Shia.
Two demolitions
The Wahhabi movement, holding structures over graves to be forbidden, razed the shrines of al-Baqi when it first took Madinah in 1220/1806; the Ottomans rebuilt them under Abd al-Hamid II. After the Saudi conquest of the Hijaz, a fatwa of the scholars of Madinah ordered their destruction again, and on 8 Shawwal 1344 — 21 April 1926 — every tomb in the cemetery was levelled, along with the shrines of al-Ma'la in Makkah. The graves of the four Imams are today marked only by stones.
Response
The demolition provoked outrage across the Muslim world; Iran declared a day of mourning and withheld recognition of the new Saudi state for three years, and scholars wrote the first systematic critiques of Wahhabism. The Shia keep 8 Shawwal as Yawm al-Hadm, with gatherings that mourn the graves and call for the rebuilding of al-Baqi.
Written for Shia Online Community. Dates and facts are checked against the references listed under Research & books; where the tradition records more than one date, all are given.
