Funeral Rites In Islam
Written by Dr. Bilal Philips
Based on Shaykh al-Albaanee's Ahkaam al-Janaa'iz, simplified and adapted to deal with issues facing Muslims in the West. It includes authentication of all hadeeths cited, as well as an appendix listing the most common bid'ahs (innovations) associated with funeral rites.
Although death is not a pleasant or popular topic of discussion, it is absolutely the most certain event which every human being knows must happen in his or her life. Consequently, Islam has provided a complete set of instructions for the dying individual, those who are present at the time of death, as well as those responsible for burying the individual. These instructions should be common knowledge among Muslims, since death often comes when it is least expected. The purpose of this book is to provide English-speaking Muslims with a concise and authentic compilation of the instructions regarding funeral rites in Islam.
Books of this type are of particular importance today, because most Muslim communities, worldwide, have drifted far away from the pure teachings of Islam. As a result, much of their funeral rites consist of innovative practices absorbed from neighbouring non-Muslim communities or inherited from earlier generations of ignorant Muslims.
The material for this book was originally prepared in 1982-3 for book three (Grade 9) of my Islamic Studies series which I taught for almost ten years at Manaret al-Riyadh Arabic-Islamic School. The main source of the information for the chapter was the classic, Ahkaamul-Janaa'iz by Shaykh Naasirud-Deen al-Albaanee. The significance of Shaykh Naasir's work, is that it is both comprehensive, as well as being fully authenticated. What is presently in the reader's hands is a summary of the main issues related to Islamic funeral rites and the evidences used to prove them.
It was my intention to publish the chapter as a book on funeral rites a number of years ago. However, there were already some books available on the subject in English, so I chose to concentrate my publishing efforts in other fields where there was a greater lack of literature. The fact that I have now decided to publish this book does not mean that all the other areas in which there is a scarcity of authentic literature have now been completely covered. It is just that the need for such a text has been impressed on me repeatedly over the past few years. This is mainly due to the increased awareness of Muslims, over the past decade, about the importance of authentic writings.
Perhaps the best and most comprehensive book on the topic of funeral rites is volume four of the English translation of Sayyid Sabiq's Fiqh as-Sunnah. However, there remains a need for a more rigorous authentication of the material used in the text. Also, volume four is part of an expensive five volume set, only available in hard back. Consequently, this work fills two voids; that of a fully authenticated work on funeral etiquette, and that it is reasonably priced.
In closing, I would like to thank all those who contributed to the publication of this book. Foremost among them are my proofreaders, like Sister Jameelah Campbell and my wife, and my researcher 'Abdul Majeed Hasan who helped greatly in providing the hadeeth references in English sources. Finally, I close, asking Allah to record this work among my good deeds and reward all who contributed to its publication.