The Ruling on Praying the Funeral Prayer Inside the Cemetery

The questioner : Yes. We mentioned yesterday the exception of praying over a grave in the cemetery. Some scholars say that only the case of the grave is an exception, meaning praying over the grave itself, whereas the funeral prayer for a body that has not yet been buried in the cemetery remains subject to the default ruling, which is that it is invalid. One should pray behind the state of the cemetery, then enter.

The Shaykh : Yes. No, the first opinion is more correct: that one prays over the dead in the cemetery just as one prays over the graves, because praying over the graves is greater. If the Shari'ah permits a person to pray toward a grave, even though it is specifically forbidden to pray toward graves, then praying in the place of the graves is all the more permissible.

The questioner : We hold that the default is not to pray, so when this case was excepted, the rest remains subject to the default.

The Shaykh : No, as long as we have a valid analogy, we follow it.