How to Pray Upon the Dead

Authentic Supplications of the Prophet

How to Pray Upon the Dead (158)

'Abi 'Umãmatah said that a companion of the Prophet

told him: The sunnah with respect to the funeral prayer is that the Imãm pronounce the takbeerah ⁽¹⁷⁴⁾, then, that he silently read the opening surah of the Qur'ãn after the first pronunciation of the takbeerah. Then, that he petition salãt ⁽¹⁷⁵⁾ upon the Prophet

, and that he make sincere supplication for the corpse over the following (three) takbeeras, not reciting [Qur'ãn] in any of them. Then he should make tasleem silently in himself (when he steps out of the prayer ([turning] to his right), and the sunnah is that those behind him do as their Imãm did) ⁽¹⁷⁶⁾

Footnotes

⁽¹⁷⁴⁾ This is to say 'Allahu 'akbaru

⁽¹⁷⁵⁾ Ask Allah to bestow honor, and grace upon the Prophet . Al-'Albãni said that he had not come across any specific funeral-related wording for petitioning salãt upon the Prophet , saying that any of the authentic wordings used in tashahhud would be correct.

⁽¹⁷⁶⁾ Al-'Albãni said that the wording: "Then, that he petition salãt upon the Prophet , and that he make sincere supplication for the corpse over the following (three) takbeeras" indicates that the petitioning of salãt upon the Prophet is done after the second takbeerah, not before that, because if it were before it would not fall into the (three) takbeeras, it would fall before that. The parentheses are related to the references for this hadeeth in the hadeeth reporters section.

Reporters

Al-'Albãni said, in his 'Ahkãm 'Al-Janã'iz wa Bida`ihã that it was reported by Al-Shafi`iy in his Al-'Um, 239-240/1. He said that the squiggly brackets were reported by Al-Hãkim, 360/1; and that Al-Hãkim said it was sound according to the conditions of Al-Bukhãri, and Muslim; that Ath-thahabi agreed; and that so did he.

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