Dad, what exactly is Al-Baqî'?

Imagine that you are in Medina.

In front of you is the immense Mosque of the Prophet ﷺ.

And right next to it, behind a large wall, is a very special place.

A place that already existed more than 1,400 years ago, at the time of the Prophet ﷺ.

This place is called Al-Baqî‘.

But... Al-Baqî‘, what exactly is it?

Al-Baqî‘ is the famous cemetery of Medina.

Its full name is Baqî‘ al-Gharqad.

And you know what? This name has a meaning.

The gharqad is a kind of thorny shrub that used to grow in this place. That is why it was called Baqî‘ al-Gharqad.

But what makes Al-Baqî‘ so special is not only its age.

It is above all everything that happened there.

At the time of the Prophet ﷺ, Muslims were already buried there. And the Prophet ﷺ knew this place well.

He even accompanied funerals there.

One day, while some Companions were at Al-Baqî‘ for a burial, the Prophet ﷺ joined them. He sat down, and his Companions sat around him.

And there, in the middle of this cemetery, he gave them an important teaching.

He spoke to them about what Allah had decreed and taught them that they should continue to do good deeds.

But that is not all.

The Prophet ﷺ also went to Al-Baqî‘ to invoke Allah on behalf of the Muslims buried there.

‘Â'ishah رضي الله عنها reported that at the end of the night, the Prophet ﷺ would go to Al-Baqî‘ and greet its inhabitants.

He also asked Allah to forgive them.

In another authentic narration, ‘Â'ishah رضي الله عنها reported that Jibrîl عليه السلام came to the Prophet ﷺ. Allah had ordered him to go to the inhabitants of Al-Baqî‘ and ask for forgiveness for them.

The Prophet ﷺ therefore went there and invoked Allah on their behalf.

Do you now understand why this cemetery holds such a special place in the history of Medina?

Since the time of the Prophet ﷺ, a great number of Muslims have been buried there.

Among them are great Companions.

‘Uthmân ibn ‘Affân رضي الله عنه, the third caliph of Islam, is buried there.

There are also the graves of several wives of the Prophet ﷺ, who are called the Mothers of the Believers.

Members of his family were also buried there.

For example, his son Ibrâhîm, his uncle Al-‘Abbâs ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib, and his grandson Al-Hasan ibn ‘Alî, may Allah be pleased with them.

And many, many other Muslims have been buried there over the centuries.

Al-Baqî‘ has indeed changed a lot.

At the time of the Prophet ﷺ, it did not have the size it has today.

Little by little, throughout history, the cemetery was expanded.

Today, its area is about 180,000 square meters, or about 18 hectares.

And contrary to what you might think, Al-Baqî‘ is not only an ancient historical place preserved to remember the past.

It is still a cemetery.

Even today, Muslims are buried there.

This means that from the time of the Prophet ﷺ until our time, Al-Baqî‘ continues to fulfill the same function.

But there remains an important question.

Why do Muslims visit a cemetery like Al-Baqî‘?

The Prophet ﷺ taught us this.

When a Muslim visits graves, he can remember that life on this earth does not last forever and that one day, we will all return to Allah.

He greets the Muslims who have died and asks Allah to forgive them and have mercy on them.

And pay close attention to this difference:

We invoke Allah for the dead. We do not invoke the dead.

We do not ask them to protect us, heal us, or accomplish something for us.

It is from Allah alone that we ask this.

When the Prophet ﷺ went to Al-Baqî‘, it was Allah that he invoked on behalf of those buried there.

So, the next time you see a picture of Medina and the Mosque of the Prophet ﷺ, look carefully toward Al-Baqî‘.

Behind those walls is a place that has crossed more than fourteen centuries of history.

A place where Companions, members of the Prophet's ﷺ family, and countless Muslims rest.

A place where the Prophet ﷺ himself went.

And above all, a place that reminds us of something no one should forget:

our life here below has an end...

and after it comes the life of the Hereafter.

That is what, exactly, Al-Baqî‘ is.