Clarification that a bequest can be material or spiritual, and that it must be in accordance with the Shari'ah.

The Shaykh : However, jurisprudence and correct reasoning have a wide scope for expanding the meaning of a bequest through a fortiori analogy. Since it is obligatory for one who has something or possesses something to make a bequest, as detailed earlier, which is a material bequest, we say here that it is necessary to make a spiritual, Shari'ah-based bequest if one knows that his family and relatives are in need of such a bequest. There is no doubt that in this era, we are in great need for each of us to bequeath to our family what we know they may fall short in when the term of life and certainty comes.
For example, there is the hadith of 'Umar ibn al-Khattab and his son Abdullah, and al-Mughirah ibn Shu'bah, a group of the Companions, all of whom narrated from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that he said: This is a serious matter, and its seriousness is such that it confused some of the Salaf, let alone many of the Khalaf. Among the Salaf was the Mother of the Believers, the Lady Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her), who hastened to deny this hadith and attribute error to the Companion Ibn 'Umar who narrated this hadith: At first glance, this interpretation by the Lady Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) seems reasonable and acceptable, especially since she followed it by saying: How can this be, when Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) says: How can the dead be punished for the weeping of their family over them? She said that this hadith, according to the apparent narration of Ibn 'Umar, contradicts the verse, and therefore she interpreted the hadith as referring to a man from the Jews who deserved punishment.
But the scholars who traced this hadith and extracted for it many correct paths from a group of the Companions, whom I mentioned earlier in addition to Ibn 'Umar, his father 'Umar, and al-Mughirah ibn Shu'bah, said: It is not possible that this group, who are among the great Companions, made a mistake in narrating the hadith.
Therefore, the hadith must be traced in a way that first agrees with the apparent meaning of the hadith, meaning it is not interpreted as referring to the Jews as the Lady Aisha did, and second, it does not differ from or contradict the verse on which the Lady Aisha relied.
So the majority of scholars held that this hadith can be interpreted in two meanings.
One is that he is punished in the grave, but the punishment here does not mean retribution, but rather pain and sorrow. This is like a natural matter, but this is in this worldly life. Or this interpreter says or imagines that if the dead person dies and his family weeps over him, and the dead person knows of their weeping, he grieves for their grief. This is a natural matter in this world.
Others said that this meaning is not what is intended, but rather the intended meaning is actual punishment. However, this punishment only befalls the one who... and here is the point, as it is said in citing this hadith on the occasion of the bequest whose meaning we wanted to expand. They said the dead person is punished for the weeping of his family over him if he did not forbid them, and if he did not bequeath to them that when he dies, they should not wail, not moan, not lament for him, and so on. If he did not do that, he is afflicted with punishment due to his negligence in the state of being in the abode of obligation, the worldly life. But if he fulfilled his obligation, there is no punishment upon him.
So the dead person is punished. Therefore, the word "the dead" is not for comprehensiveness and inclusion, so the meaning of the hadith is not every dead person. Rather, the "al" in "the dead" is the article of specification, referring to the dead person who does not bequeath to his family and does not warn them against violating the Shari'ah due to their weeping or other of the blameworthy matters that relate today to the funeral procession and funerals. So the dead person who does not make such a Shari'ah-based bequest, while knowing that people violate it, is the one who deserves such punishment.
And to complete the discussion on this hadith, I say that the first meaning, which is interpreting punishment as grief, sorrow, and pain, was said by a man among our great scholars, namely Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him). But as you all know, we are not Taymiyyis; we do not show fanaticism for any person on earth, however high and exalted, except our Messenger (may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon him), because he is protected from error, and whoever else is not protected from error. And this is the evidence.
This man, Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him), is one of the scholars with the least error among us, but even so, he is not protected from error. And among his errors is his interpretation of the previous hadith: "The dead person is punished," meaning he feels pain. He argued for this with evidence that might be valid or acceptable, were it not for a narration in Sahih Muslim from the hadith of al-Mughirah ibn Shu'bah, where he said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: So this circumstance invalidates that interpretation, because if we concede that the dead person feels pain, he feels pain in the grave. But in the Hereafter, there is only one of two things: either bliss or Hellfire.
Moreover, another objection or refutation is raised against that interpretation and explanation, which is that we know that when the dead person dies, he is finished, becoming like the stones and the dust around him; he hears nothing and feels nothing at all. And this is, of course, a discussion I do not want to delve into, especially since I expanded on it somewhat in my introduction to the thesis: "The Clear Verses on the Non-Hearing of the Dead According to the Hanafi Scholars".
Therefore, the bequest here must be understood in terms of the text, specifically regarding what he has or owes in terms of wealth, and in terms of jurisprudence, it must be understood more broadly than that, and it is obligatory for every Muslim to bequeath to his family what he knows they are in need of being bequeathed.
For example, if the head of the household knows that his family loves to follow people in their customs and traditions, such as taking the dead person out with flowers and wailing and the like, he must bequeath that he asks them to process his funeral according to the Sunnah: no flowers, no wailing, no cars, or anything else, according to what came in the authentic Sunnah and according to what is explained in some of the books of the Sunnah, including my book "Rulings on Funerals and Their Innovations."