• Death: Traditions that follow

In our part of the world, when a person dies, particularly in old age, his family follows a number of traditions such as bring a number of people from a local Qur'anic school to read the Qur'an near his grave. They take turns in order to maintain a 24 hour Qur'anic recitation until the following Friday. The deceased's family believes that by so doing, they prevent the angels from questioning their relatives in the grave until Friday when Allah forgives him. The reciters are well catered for with food and drink and clothes, and given some money at the end of their task. Other duties are also fulfilled at particular intervals, such as the third, tenth and fortieth days of the death of the person concerned. If the deceased has some married sons, their fathers-in-law are duty bound to bring clothes to all member of the deceased person's family. Every Thursday and on anniversaries of the death of the person concerned, his more dutiful children serve food to a number of poor people who are called in to recite the Qur'an on his behalf. Could you please comment on these traditions.

I have given a detailed answer on what actions may be of benefit to a deceased person, when performed by his relatives. I said that Allah may well credit to the deceased person the reward of any sadaqah or charitable donation or recitation of the Qur'an or pilgrimage made on his behalf. Allah also answers any supplication by living people to forgive the dead person and bestow His mercy on him. However, all that should be spontaneous, done with sincerity of purpose and purity of intention. It must have the right motivation and the proper method of Islamic worship. Thus, to gather students or teachers of the local Qur'anic school to recite the Qur'an for the deceased and then to reward them financially is not acceptable. To imagine that people can prevent the angels from accomplishing a task Allah has assigned to them is totally mistaken. To give financial reward to a person in return for his recitation of the Qur'an for any purpose is not permissible. Indeed it is forbidden to both the reciter and the one who employs him to do so. The reciter may not receive wages for his recitation and the other person commits an offense by hiring him for that purpose.

Having weekly, monthly or 40-day or yearly anniversaries, when you perform certain tasks, is also an innovation. Although the tasks performed are aspects of Islamic worship, it is not permissible to institutionalize them in the way they have been in your area. As you realize, these traditions place a financial burden on relatives, but they do not earn them any reward in return. It is far better for the relatives of a deceased person to pray Allah to forgive him as often as they wish, without conforming to any social traditions associating such an action with a passage of so many days or years after his death. All these habits you have mentioned are totally unacceptable and completely un-Islamic.

According to an Urdu weekly published in Lucknow, the husband of a deceased woman cannot give her a bath. This is because their marriage is annulled on the death of either spouse, which deprives the other of all rights acquired through marriage. The only concession is that he can see her face. I had earlier read that Ali bathed the body of his wife Fatimah, the Prophet's daughter, while Abu Bakr, the first caliph was given a bath by his wife. Could you please clarify this point.

That a marriage comes to an end on death of either partner may be technically correct. But this is only a technicality which does not deprive either party of the results of their having been married. By extension one can say that every relationship ends with death. As for the point you are asking about, it is the normal practice that the body of a deceased woman is washed by another woman. However, it is permissible for either spouse to wash the other in preparation for burial. Moreover, if a woman dies and there is no woman in the locality who is willing to give her the final bath, it is certainly far better that she should be washed in that case by her husband.

I suppose that the author of that piece you read in the Urdu magazine has based his point of view totally on a very small technical point. He made a deduction which may cause an unnecessary inconvenience and which is in conflict with what the companions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, did.

• Death: Washing the dead — reasons for

What is the reason for washing a dead person before burying him, when we know that the process of decomposition starts with death?

When a person dies and he is prepared for burial, all his body is washed, in the same way as a living person washes his body to remove the state of ceremonial impurity. Death marks the end of the stage of our life on earth, and the beginning of another state which leads to life in the hereafter. The departure from this life is thus marked by an act of symbolic purification.