Name and Origin
The cemetery known as Jannat al-Baqi (“the Garden of al-Baqi”) lies immediately to the southeast of the Prophet’s Mosque (Al-Masjid al-Nabawi) in Medina. Its older and more formal name is Baqi al-Gharqad — baqi denoting an open ground of mixed trees, and al-gharqad referring to the boxthorn shrubs that once covered the site. Together the name evokes the wild, tree-strewn land it was before it became a burial ground.
According to the traditional accounts, the cemetery was established in the earliest period of the hijra, soon after the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) settled in Medina in 1 AH / 622 CE. It is widely held to be the first Islamic cemetery of the city. Among the first Companions (RA) reported to have been buried there is Asʿad ibn Zurara (RA), one of the Ansar; the early muhajir Companion Uthman ibn Mazʿun (RA) is also remembered among its earliest interments. From these beginnings al-Baqi grew across the centuries into the resting place of thousands of the Prophet’s family, his Companions, and later generations of scholars and pious Muslims, giving it a sanctity second in Medina only to the Prophet’s Mosque itself.
Resting Place of the Ahl al-Bayt
For the Shia traditions — including the Ismaili-Tayyibi heritage of the Dawoodi Bohra — al-Baqi is revered above all for the members of the Ahl Al Bayt interred within it. Four of the Imams from the line of Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (AS) are, by Shia tradition, buried at al-Baqi:
- Imam Hasan ibn Ali al-Mujtaba (AS) — the elder grandson of the Prophet (SAW) (see Imam Hasan Al Mujtaba);
- Imam Ali Zayn al-Abidin (AS) — known as al-Sajjad, son of Imam Husayn (AS) (see Imam Ali Zayn Al Abidin);
- Imam Muhammad al-Baqir (AS) — the fifth Imam (see Imam Muhammad Al Baqir); and
- Imam Jafar al-Sadiq (AS) — the sixth Imam, from whose teaching both the Twelver and Ismaili intellectual traditions descend (see Imam Jafar Al Sadiq).
These four Imams were, before the demolition, remembered beneath a single revered domed shrine that pilgrims came to visit. Tradition also associates al-Baqi with the burial of al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (RA), the Prophet’s uncle. The location of the grave of Sayyida Fatima al-Zahra (AS), daughter of the Prophet (SAW), is itself disputed in the sources — some traditions place it within al-Baqi, others within her own home (later part of the mosque), and still others nearby — and the Bohra and wider Shia traditions hold her exact resting place to be among the matters left deliberately unmarked (see Fatima Al Zahra). Because of this density of the Prophet’s descendants, al-Baqi occupies a place of deep reverence in Bohra religious memory, alongside the shrines preserved elsewhere through the Fatimid Caliphate and the later history of the community.
Companions, Wives, and Scholars
Beyond the Imams, al-Baqi is the recorded burial place of a great many Companions (RA) and members of the Prophet’s household. Several of the Ummahat al-Muʾminin (the wives of the Prophet, “Mothers of the Believers”) are traditionally said to rest there, among them Aisha (RA), Hafsa bint Umar (RA), Umm Salama (RA), Zaynab bint Jahsh (RA), and Safiyya bint Huyayy (RA), though accounts differ on individual cases. The third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan (RA), is also reported to have been buried at or adjoining al-Baqi.
Over the following centuries the cemetery continued to receive the pious of Medina — jurists, traditionists, and the descendants of the Prophet (the sadat) — so that al-Baqi became, in effect, a chronicle in earth of the early Muslim community. By the later medieval and Ottoman periods, domes, enclosures, and grave markers had been raised over the most venerated graves, and the cemetery was a recognised station of devotion for pilgrims arriving in Medina.
The Demolitions of 1806 and 1925–1926
The structures of al-Baqi were destroyed in two principal episodes, both connected to the rise of the Wahhabi movement in the Arabian Peninsula. The first occurred in the early nineteenth century, around 1806 CE, during an earlier period of Wahhabi-Saudi control of the Hijaz; the shrines were later rebuilt, particularly under Ottoman patronage in the mid-nineteenth century.
The second and more comprehensive demolition followed the Saudi conquest of the Hijaz. After the House of Saud took control of Medina, the standing domes, mausoleums, and grave markers of al-Baqi were razed to the ground. This destruction is most commonly dated to 8 Shawwal 1344 AH, corresponding to 21 April 1926 CE (some accounts place the relevant events in 1925); the demolition is associated with the Ikhwan, the Wahhabi militia, acting under the authority of Ibn Saud, with a juridical opinion attributed to the Najdi qadi Abd Allah ibn Bulayhid. The justification advanced was the Wahhabi doctrine opposing built structures over graves, which its proponents regarded as leading to shirk (associating partners with God) — a position firmly rejected by the Shia and by large parts of the Sunni world, who understood the shrines and the visiting of graves as acts of respect and remembrance, not worship.
The destruction provoked protest across the Muslim world, from Shia communities and others alike, and the date is commemorated annually as Yaum al-Gham — the “Day of Sorrow” (also called Youm-e-Inhedam) — with mourning gatherings and renewed appeals for the rebuilding of the shrines. To this day the graves at al-Baqi remain unmarked by the domes and mausoleums that once stood over them.
Significance and Ziyarat
For the Dawoodi Bohra and the wider Shia world, al-Baqi remains a place of profound spiritual attachment, visited as part of the pilgrimage to Medina. The practice of ziyarat — the visiting of the graves of the Prophet (SAW), his family, and the righteous — is understood in the Bohra tradition as an act of love, reverence, and seeking nearness to God through those whom He honoured, never as worship of the dead (see Understanding Ziyarat and Medina Ziyarat Guide). Pilgrims arriving at the gate of al-Baqi offer salutations to the Ahl al-Bayt and the Companions interred within, even though the graves now lie level and unadorned.
The memory of al-Baqi as it once was — its domes, its shrine over the four Imams, its enclosures honouring the Mothers of the Believers — endures in devotional literature, in the laments recited on Yaum al-Gham, and in the hope, widely held across the community, that the shrines may one day be restored. In the Bohra spiritual imagination, al-Baqi stands as both a treasured station of ziyarat and a poignant reminder of a sacred heritage diminished, binding the believer’s heart to the earliest generations of Islam and to the family of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW).