Our Story
Ziyara Spiritual Care was founded in 2011 from a simple conviction: people facing illness, dying, death, and grief should not have to face these experiences alone.
The name Ziyara comes from the Arabic word for “visit.” Within the Islamic tradition, visiting the sick, accompanying those who suffer, caring for neighbors, and honoring human dignity are acts of compassion and spiritual responsibility.
Ziyara began by strengthening spiritual care for Muslim patients and families in healthcare settings. Over time, that work expanded from bedside visitation to professional chaplaincy education, supervised clinical formation, end-of-life spiritual care, religious and cultural competency, consultation, and the development of spiritual-care programs in the United States and internationally.
Today, Ziyara works with patients and families, chaplains, healthcare professionals, clergy, students, universities, hospitals, and community organizations. We remain rooted in the Islamic spiritual tradition while serving and collaborating across religious and cultural traditions.
Our Mission
Ziyara Spiritual Care advances compassionate spiritual care through service, education, professional formation, and institutional partnership, with particular attention to serious illness, dying, death, and grief.
We seek to strengthen spiritual care as an essential dimension of whole-person care while honoring the religious, spiritual, and cultural identity of every person.
Our Vision
We envision communities and healthcare institutions in which spiritual care is recognized as an essential dimension of whole-person care and no person faces serious illness, dying, death, or grief without compassionate accompaniment.
Our Approach
Spiritual care begins with presence. Our practice does not begin by assuming what another person believes or needs. We begin by listening.
We seek to understand what gives a person meaning, hope, strength, connection, and peace, as well as what may be causing spiritual distress. For some people, spiritual care is explicitly religious and may include prayer, sacred texts, ritual, or conversation about God. For others, it may center on family, relationships, meaning, reconciliation, hope, fear, grief, or questions that have no simple answers.
Our task is not to impose answers. It is to accompany.
Rooted in a Tradition. Open to All.
Moreover, Ziyara’s approach grows from Islamic traditions of compassion, hospitality, visiting, accompaniment, and care for people experiencing vulnerability. Therefore, these roots shape who we are and call us toward the dignity of every human being.
Additionally, Ziyara provides spiritual care without requiring a person to share our religious beliefs. We collaborate across traditions and, when appropriate, help connect people with clergy and spiritual-care resources from their own communities.