An Examination of the Reason Studies of Specific Qur'anic Arguments and the Legitimacy of the Establishment of Holy Shrines

The issue of holy shrines of the Ahl al-Bayt is one of the pillars and symbols of the religiosity of the followers of the Imamiyah denomination. Some sacred shrines, such as the holy shrine of Imam Hussein (pbuh), are practically the symbol of the Imamiyah denomination among Islamic denominations. However, the establishment of holy shrines has long been one of the challenges between the Imamiyah and the opponents. Opponents and proponents, in addition to general jurisprudential arguments, such as the reason for commemoration of religious events and places on the agreeing side, and the reason for heresy on the opposing side, also rely on specific Qur'anic and narrative arguments. This paper deals only with specific arguments on the subject of tombs building, and does not aim to focus on comprehensive examination of all the arguments and statements on the subject of tombs building in general, and on the subject of building of holy shrines in particular. One of the novelties of the paper is examining, deepening, and presenting a new account of the Qur'anic reason for setting up holy shrines, categorizing all the narrations on which the opponents rely, along with a comprehensive critique of their meaning and answering the objections. This research has been carried out with the method of contemporary jurisprudence so that its audience is both Imamiyah and non-Imamiyah. The result indicates that not only the validity of specific Qur'anic arguments and the legitimacy of narrative arguments are proven, and but also the establishment of the holy shrines is desirable.