In Islam, ziyara(h) (زِيَارَة ziyārah, "visit") or ziyarat (, ziyārat, "pilgrimage") is a form of pilgrimage to sites associated with Muhammad, his family members and descendants (including the Shī'ī Imāms), his companions and other venerated figures in Islam such as the prophets, Sufi auliya, and Islamic scholars. Sites of pilgrimage include mosques, maqams, battlefields, mountains, and caves.
Ziyārat can also refer to a form of supplication made by the Shia, in which they send salutations and greetings to Muhammad and his family.
Ziyarat comes from zār "to visit". In Islam it refers to pious visitation, pilgrimage to a holy place, tomb or shrine. Iranian and South Asian Muslims use the word ziyarat for both the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca as well as for pilgrimages to other sites such as visiting a holy place. In Indonesia the term is ziarah for visiting holy places or graves.
Different Muslim-majority countries, speaking many different languages, use different words for these sites where ziyarat is performed:
Ziyāratgāh – Persian word meaning, "sites of Ziyarat"
Imāmzādeh – in Iran, tombs of the descendants of the Twelver Imāms
Dargah Dergâh, Urdu, ; दरगाह; literally: "threshold, doorstep [of the interred holy person's spiritual sanctum];" the shrine is considered a "doorstep" to a spiritual realm) – in South Asia, Turkey and Central Asia for tombs of Sufi saints
Ziarat or Jiarat – in Southeast Asia
Ziyaratkhana – in South Asia (less common)
Gongbei () – in China (from Persian gonbad "dome")
Mazar – a general term meaning a shrine, typically of a Shi'i Saint or noble.
Maqam – a shrine built on the site associated with a Muslim saint or religious figure.
More than any other tomb in the Islamic world, the shrine of Muhammad is considered a source of blessings for the visitor. A hadith of the Islamic prophet Muhammad states that, "He who visits my grave will be entitled to my intercession" and in a different version "I will intercede for those who have visited me or my tomb.