What does hastening the burial really mean?

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Our discussion and our reading and our journey through the books authored by the late and esteemed scholar of islam is one of those rare individuals in the history of islam there are many many many scholars throughout the history of islam millions the centuries but there are only a few and when i say a few with respect to those millions that are absolutely exceptional in that they have perfected not just learned not just studied but perfected and specialized in more than one science of islam many people know about the greater imams of phil for instance a certain science so for example imam malik we all know illinois the great imam one of the four imams most people don't know that he was more profound and more respected and esteemed in the science of hadith than he was in the science of phil a lot of people don't know that about him a lot of people don't know that about al-imam shafiri as well and that al-imam is considered one of the references of the arabic language what does that mean meaning that if we wish to see if a certain word or a certain clause or a certain type of sentence structure is something that is acceptable in the arabic language if al-imam is narrated to have said it it is because he was especially gifted in the science of grammar and the arabic language and a profound poet as well and so on and so forth now he specialized in most sciences of islam the science of grammar the science of linguistics the science of hadith and that is evident in his book his summarization of surah right in the science of which is evident in zadil ma'ad and other works of his he specialized in the science of us and that is evident in his book he specialized in the science of tafsir which is very evident in his book mederegis b he specialized in most of the sciences of islam if not all of them that is a great feat a person could spend his entire life just reaching one of those specialties right it was said by some of the earlier self earlier scholars of hadith that the sciences of hadith are 100 and each one of them a man could spend his life perfecting so it is a very rare kind of person to write a book this and this is why we spend so much time on the works of abnor this is why ibn al-qayyam is so well respected in all circles or all relevant circles because of his high status in the sciences of islam rahimahullah his words are gold and you can almost root back every single sentence he makes to a verse of the quran or a narration of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and this is what al-fudailah rahimahullah said.

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Whoever takes the revelation of allah and makes it dominant over himself he will speak with wisdom and whoever takes the revelations of allah and whoever takes his own opinions and makes those dominant over himself he will speak with innovation now so we were continuing in how the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would bury the dead this is where we have reached we will read a passage and we will explain it and we will continue on in this way if mid-stream you find that i add more arabic than english or more english than arabic this is because the crowd in front of me has changed right so don't be frustrated by that inshaallah we're trying to disseminate this knowledge to everyone as much as possible yahoo he said and it is of his sunnah that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would waste no time in preparing the deceased for his burial and his meeting with allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala so he would hasten the burial and there are narrations in which the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam outright commanded that we hasten our taking thee deceased to his grave that we not waste any time in doing so now what does that mean does that mean that we should take this literally or should we take this or that we should take this how literally should we take this basically some people understand that if you carry the casket you should jog and you should run with it now that is not what is intended by the narration it's not intended by the narration like in our time that if we put the coffin or the deceased into the hearse that the hearst take off and leave everybody in the procession behind or that we drive maniacs down the street trying to literally speed the process that's not what is intended what's intended is that we waste no time unnecessarily right that he doesn't sit or she doesn't sit in a freezer for three days while we get around to it or that the as some of the mushrikeen used to do would leave the body for a day or two in the house right and burn incense and oils and remove all mirrors because they used to fear that the soul would be trapped inside of these mirrors so on and so forth different things of jehelia that they would do or that we leave the body sitting around for two or three days so that everybody can come and see the body this is something that we have here in america it's called viewing right so we have usually two or three days of viewing so we have the funeral home open and the guy is sitting out in the casket and everybody comes and looks at the person all of this is of innovation and of the ways of jehelia the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam commanded haste in preparation of the body not speed per se but haste in not wasting any time a question comes into comes to mind a lot especially in a place america so a lot of people here in america they have family outside of the country right they have children outside of the country they have parents or relatives or whatever it is should we delay the burial until the family members come from overseas or not this is the question and the answer is we should not delay the burial until anyone comes from overseas the person has a right to be buried as soon as he passes away and the presence or absence of his family members has no bearing on the deceased rather what has a bearing on the deceased is failing to follow the sunnah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in giving him his rights to be buried with haste this is incorrect sometimes they'll leave the body for a day or two or three while all of the family gets together and decide on a date this is haram right allah said in the quran.

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So it's important for us to understand that the and i know that a lot of people aren't going to listen to this advice because let's face it people's customs a lot of times override what we know of the sunnah right so a person passes away and i say well i'm his brother or i'm his father i'm a son or i'm i need to be there for his burial yes if you can get there in time within a day a reasonable amount of time sure that's that's wonderful that's great that's fine otherwise you cannot delay the burial of your muslim brother of a muslim simply because you want to be present this is not conscionable right and this is not acceptable it's against the sun of the prophet sallallahu alaihi many of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam's companions many of them and of them were his family members who passed away in other lands and he never traveled to the to the burial he stayed in medina made dua for them passed away and one of the was martyred prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam did not travel to bury him he allowed him to be buried in a proper amount of time wherever he was killed right for a person to travel to be in a particular funeral this is not something that is necessary right this is not something that is necessary and if it entails delaying the burial of a muslim then it is not permissible this is unacceptable when we say a person should be hastened his burial should be hastened let's speak about our time today here in america in america we have paperwork we have autopsies we have all kinds of things right what we're speaking about is as soon as possible the person is to be buried person passes away they have to be released by the hospital let's say or the coroner feels that the death is suspicious and so an autopsy has been has been recommended or been commanded an ops an autopsy takes place as soon as this autopsy or as soon as the release papers have happened or as soon as all of that is is finished we immediately begin the preparation of the body and so we begin the preparation of the body daytime or night time whenever it is and there are instances when some of the companions were buried at night now but this is not necessary this may be for some reason right so for example was buried at night why was he buried at night he was buried at night because there were many people who a group of people who had began to almost worship him they revered him too much and so it was paramount that his grave be unmarked and unidentifiable to this group lest it become and be turned into a shrine where other than allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is worshiped so the people of that time they buried alibi in secret in the night time that's a reason to bury at night but usually burials will take place in the daytime if a person dies and we prepare him at night should we wait until the next day to bury him in the daytime the answer is yes why because more people will be present to make salah upon the person correct and this is of benefit and of consequence to the deceased so for example people pass away here all the time they pass away at night they're released at night but we always make salah usually usually sometimes later but usually a bull here at the masjid here at this masjid a person may say why why don't you pray it 10 o'clock or nine o'clock as soon as the body is ready as soon as the gravedigger is ready as soon as the funeral the as soon as the as soon as the graveyard is ready we would say because that delay of a few hours is inconsequential and it will be of benefit to the person who has passed away right because for instance we have a huge crowd that prays with us most likely after we're finished most people will head outside or head to the middle hall and pray solatill and the more people we have praying solaitel geneza the more it will be beneficial to the person who has passed away that is a cause to delay a couple of hours there's no problem with that that is fine if we have a choice between burying a person at nine o'clock with only ten people to make salah or burying a person at one o'clock with a hundred and fifty people to make salia we will choose one o'clock right this is of al-hikma and this is of weighing the good and evil and weighing thee where do we get this from well the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said in the narration.

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The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam has mentioned that no individual will pass away and a hundred and in another wording 40 individuals will pray over this person's body after his death except that allah will grant them intercession on his behalf what does that mean intercession and we intercede on behalf of this person that allah forgive him so allah will accept this intercession why the discrepancy in numbers why in one narration he says a hundred and in another wording he says 40 because it depends on the equality of the people making salah the quality of the people the quality of their religion their religiosity some communities are strong in their islam strong in their knowledge far from sheikh far from associating partners from allah close to the sunnah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam less of them is more and some communities are weaker and further from the sunnah and less knowledgeable and amongst them is more sinfulness and so there is more necessary for this intercession to be acceptable when we speak about hastening the process of burial we're not talking about running with the casket we're not talking about speeding down the highway at 70 miles an hour we're talking about preparing within reason the body for burial and placing the person in his grave as soon as reasonably possible we mentioned that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would often bathe or have bathed the deceased and would use kefur and he would also use a siddhir he would use siddhir which is a type of tree that would grow in the desert at that time he would take the leaves of siddhar and he would crush them up and he would put them in the water right mix them in the water and then he would bathe the body the bathing of the body would be three times or five times or seven times or as many times as necessary to get the body to be bathed and purified of obvious dirt or obvious you know to make the body obviously clean now why would he use siddhir we have to look at this he would use siddhir as was used with his daughter zainab and bukhari a muslim because it has cleaning properties to it right it has cleaning properties to it.

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Foreign.

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And so the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would use siddhar is a type of tree because of its cleaning properties we don't have to import this particular lotus plant now we don't have to grow it here we don't have to have it in abundance in our funeral homes in order to wash bodies with it we can use the soap that's available for us today why because the point of a siddir is its cleaning properties and we have that in modern soap right just like a siweck right what's the point of a siwak does it have to be the root of a rock tree in order for us to achieve the sunnah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam the answer is no what's the point of a siwac what's the point of it that's a real question what's the point of it clean your teeth so if you clean your teeth with a rag or if you clean your teeth with a toothbrush or if you clean your teeth with colgate or if you clean your teeth with arm and hammer you have completed the sunnah of the prophet you have done the same thing that the prophet salallahu salem did right we don't have to use that exact same instrument because we're looking for the reason that he used that instrument not necessarily the instrument itself do we understand that let's say for example we have a screw that we need to unscrew right does it matter the type of screwdriver that i use whether it's a craftsman or whether it's a any of these different types of of hardware or tool shop or dewalt or doesn't matter right that's that that that is inconsequential what matters to us is that the screw come out correct if the screw comes out we've we've done exactly what we were what we were looking for now i don't want anybody to take what i'm saying and say oh the shirt said don't use siweck i'm not saying that you see work but you don't have to go to hajj and get a big bundle of it this big and that's the only thing you use otherwise i'm not doing the sunnah right that's that's what i'm talking about right that's what we do we go overseas we look for a siddha when i get bathed i need to be bathed in a siddhar and my shroud has to be made from the same materials shrouds used to be made in the time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and all of these things this is focusing on the tool rather than focusing on the task correct so let's say for example if i point at something is my pointing is the point of it my finger or what i'm pointing at obviously what i'm pointing at my finger is merely a it's a means to an end right for example the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said if a dog drinks out of your cup or eats off of a plate of yours in order to purify it you must wash it how many times seven times one of those seven times being with with dirt correct we know this narration this narration is everyone is aware of it meshi so what if instead of using dirt i use palm olive dish soap does that take the place or not the answer is yes it takes the place in the correct opinion of the scholars of islam it takes the place of dirt was palmolive dish soap available in the time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam no it was not now it is right let me give another example in the time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam let's say there was water that was impure it had impurities in it right how would i make that water pure who knows huh no add more water right so for example if i have a pot and a and it and let's say a rat or something died in it okay how do i salvage that water in the time of the prophet salallahu i remove as much impurity as i can and i add more water to where i can no longer taste or smell or see a difference right as the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.

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He said water is pure as long as its taste smell or color has not changed right and you know this kind of reminds me i'll get off topic a little bit it reminds me of one of the major scholars of hadith he.

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Foreign.

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Likewise the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would use kafran kafur he would use kaphron in the final washing of the body why would he use camphor kaphron some sometimes it's referred to as camphor it has a very distinct smell.

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Or camphur is used often in vick's rub that smell that distinct potent smell of vicks rub that is camphor the prophet sallallahu alaihi often use that in the final washing of the body right why would he use that the scholars mention because its smell is potent and it usually wards off bugs and insects from the body for an amount of time.

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So he would use camphor in the final one should we use camphor yes if it is available we should use it and we should use it as the prophet salallahu sallam did likewise.

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A.

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When he would prepare a body for burial he would put the perfume in the person's body in the person's beard hair if it is a female he would have the hair braided zainab he was.

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It is also the sun of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam that if a woman has long hair that her hair be braided when she passes away in preparation for her burial rash.

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Foreign.