A note before you begin — and an important honesty about sources. This article is original study material on the meaning and etiquette of visiting Madinah. It is not a ziarat recitation text. The Mishkaat Mansak in hand is Volume Three of the manasik and covers the Hajj rites at Mecca and the holy stations (Mina, Arafat, Muzdalifah, the Jamarat); it does not contain a Madinah ziarat liturgy. The actual words of the ziarat — the salaam at the Rawdah, the salaam at Jannat al-Baqee — must come from the proper Bohra ziarat texts and from your Musaid and the FAIZ team. Do not recite from this study note. Where it is silent on wording, that silence is deliberate.
For most pilgrims the journey to the House is joined by a journey to the City — Madinah al-Munawwarah, “the Radiant City,” the resting place of Rasul Allah (SA). Where Mecca is the place of the rites, Madinah is the place of the heart: a visit (ziarat) made not out of obligation of the Hajj rites but out of love and longing for the Prophet and his family. This article prepares that visit by explaining its meaning and its adab; the recitations themselves you take from the ziarat text and your Musaid.
A visit of love, not a rite of Hajj
It helps to be clear about what the Madinah ziarat is and is not. The Hajj rites — ihram, tawaf, sa’i, the standing at Arafat, the stoning, the sacrifice — are completed in and around Mecca, and the Mansak ends with the closing duas at Mecca. The visit to Madinah stands apart from that sequence: it is a ziarat, a coming-to-greet. Telling this apart matters, because the frame of mind is different. You do not arrive to “perform” something; you arrive to present salaam and to ask the Prophet’s intercession.
Even within the Hajj itself the Prophet is never absent: in the ihram dua the pilgrim swears “by the grave of Your Prophet Muhammad,” and at every corner of the Ka’bah the salawat upon Muhammad and his pure progeny is woven through the supplication. The Madinah ziarat simply completes, in person, the love that the rites express from afar.
The Rawdah and the grave of Rasul Allah (SA)
The first object of the visit is the Masjid an-Nabawi and within it the Rawdah — the area the Prophet called “a garden among the gardens of Paradise” — and the grave of Rasul Allah (SA). The adab of approaching is the adab of a guest before the most honoured of hosts:
- Enter in a state of purity (wudu), in clean and dignified dress, with humility and quiet — the same khushu’, waqar and sakinah the Mansak asks of the pilgrim approaching Baitullah.
- Approach to offer salaam to Rasul Allah (SA), and then to Maulana Ali (AS) and the awliya whose presence the City holds, in the wording given in the Bohra ziarat text.
- Where the crowd and the custodians’ arrangements allow, pray in the Rawdah; otherwise pray and supplicate wherever you are able, without forcing or disrupting others.
- Make the Prophet your means of approach to Allah (tawassul) — exactly as the Mansak teaches at Maqam Ibrahim, where the pilgrim seeks intercession through Muhammad, ‘Ali, and the pure Imams of their progeny.
Jannat al-Baqee
Close to the Masjid an-Nabawi lies Jannat al-Baqee, the historic cemetery of Madinah, where members of the Ahl al-Bayt and the early companions are buried. For the Bohra mumin this is among the most moving stations of the whole journey. Here too the act is salaam — greeting those who rest there — followed by Fatiha, dua and tears, in the form your ziarat text and Musaid provide. Approach with the same reverence as at the Rawdah, mindful that this is a place of grief and of hope: grief for what the ummah lost, hope in the intercession of those greeted.
The adab that carries across
Although the words of the Madinah ziarat are not in this Mansak, its spirit is everywhere in it, and these dispositions carry directly into the City:
- Purity and dignity — arrive in wudu, calm, and decently dressed.
- Humility over performance — you come to greet, not to display.
- Salawat and tawassul — keep the blessing upon Muhammad and his Family on your tongue, and seek nearness to Allah through them.
- Charity — the Mansak closes the Hajj with sadaqa “according to one’s ability”; let the visit to the City carry the same generosity.
- Follow the text and the Musaid — for the actual ziarat, recite only from the authentic Bohra ziarat and as your Musaid directs.
What to take from the right source
Because the recitations are not in this volume, gather them in advance from the proper place:
- The Bohra ziarat text for Rasul Allah (SA), the Rawdah, and Jannat al-Baqee.
- Your Musaid and the FAIZ team, for sequence, timing, and the practical arrangements at the Masjid an-Nabawi and al-Baqee.
This article is a guide to meaning and manners only. For the ziarat itself, use the authentic ziarat text and follow your Musaid — and treat any wording you may have seen elsewhere as needing their confirmation, not this study note’s.