Kashf al-Sutur fi Nahy al-Nisa an Ziyarat al-Qubur
- Author died
- 1418 AH
- Editions
- al-Jāmi‘ah al-Islāmīyah
Kashf al-Sutur fi Nahy al-Nisa an Ziyarat al-Qubur (Unveiling the Coverings Regarding the Prohibition of Women Visiting Graves) is a legal and hadith treatise by the Saudi scholar Hammad al-Ansari (d. 1418 AH / 1997 CE), examining the prophetic reports concerning women visiting cemeteries.
Purpose and Overview
Al-Ansari composed the treatise while serving as a professor of graduate studies at the Islamic University of Madinah to address ongoing scholarly debate over the legal status of women visiting graves. He identifies three historical legal stances on the issue, all transmitted as narrations from Ahmad ibn Hanbal: disapproval without outright prohibition, permissibility, and absolute prohibition. Al-Ansari defends the third position, arguing that grave visitation is categorically forbidden for women and constitutes a major sin due to the explicit curse ( لعن ) pronounced in prophetic narrations against female visitors of graves. He aligns this conclusion with the views adopted by scholars such as Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim, Al-Nawawi, and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab.
Structure and Hadith Analysis
The author organized the work into ten thematic sections:
- Scholarly disagreement on the issue.
- The compilers of the hadiths of cursing in general.
- Detailed accounts of the narrations from the compilers.
- The chains of transmission for the narration using the wording za'irat (female visitors).
- Evaluation of the chains of this narration.
- The vocalization of the letter zay in the word zuwarat.
- Detailed exposition of the evidence for prohibition.
- The arguments of those permitting visitation and refutations of them.
- Quotations from verifying scholars on the issue.
- Conclusion on adhering to the guidance of the early generations (al-Salaf) and avoiding innovation.
A central focus of the work is the critical evaluation of the hadiths recorded by Ahmad, Al-Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah, Abu Dawud, Al-Nasa'i, Ibn Hibban, and Al-Hakim al-Naysaburi. Al-Ansari addresses contemporary arguments that allowed non-habitual visits by interpreting the wording zuwwarat al-qubur as an intensive form (mubalaghah) that applies only to excessive visitation, while dismissing the alternative wording za'irat al-qubur as weak. He defends the authenticity of the za'irat variant from the routes of Abdullah ibn Abbas and Abu Hurayrah, analyzing narrators such as Abu Salih and Umar ibn Abi Salamah to demonstrate that the text is sound (sahih or hasan sahih). Morphologically, he argues that zuwarat can be vocalized with a dammah as a non-intensive plural of za'irah, or interpreted as an attributive form (sighat nasab) rather than an intensive one, meaning both phrasings prohibit visitation unconditionally. He further corroborates this prohibition using the legal principle of blocking the means to evil (sadd al-dhara'i') and supporting narrations concerning funeral processions.
Publication
The treatise was published as an academic article in the journal of the Islamic University of Madinah (Majallat al-Jami'ah al-Islamiyyah) in issue 52 of its thirteenth year (1401 AH / 1981 CE). It was subsequently preserved and referenced among al-Ansari's published treatises in biographical collections of his scholarly works.
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