Encouraging the bequest and justice in it, warning against neglecting it or causing harm in it, and what has been reported regarding those who free slaves and give charity upon death.

The Shaykh : ... We praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness, and we seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our own selves and from the badness of our deeds. Whom Allah guides, none can mislead, and whom He leaves to mislead, none can guide. And I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. , , . As for what follows:
Indeed, the best of speech is the speech of Allah, and the best of guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), and the worst of matters are their innovations, every innovation is a religious innovation, every religious innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire.
Encouraging the bequest and justice in it, warning against neglecting it or causing harm in it, and what has been reported regarding those who free slaves and give charity upon death:
The first hadith: It is one of the authentic hadiths, as you will learn from its tracing. It states: From Ibn 'Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both), that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . In another narration: . Na'if said: I heard 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar say: No night has passed since I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) say that, except that I have my bequest written down. It was narrated by Malik, al-Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi, al-Nasa'i, and Ibn Majah.
In such a tracing, some people abbreviate it by saying: "It was narrated by Malik and the six," meaning the authors of the six books: the authors of the two Sahihs, al-Bukhari and Muslim, and the four authors of the Sunan. However, clarification may be more beneficial for some people.
The point of this hadith is a profound lesson for every Muslim: he should not, at the very least, let two nights pass, let alone more, without having his bequest written down. Therefore, every Muslim must have a written bequest under his head every two nights at most. But what is this bequest? One might assume that any bequest is required, but that is not the case. The truth in this hadith applies to a bequest for a person who has something, as he said: . In some narrations of the hadith in "Sunan al-Bayhaqi," the word is replaced by ; he has money.
This means that the bequest becomes obligatory for one who has money with someone or owes money to someone. In that case, it is necessary to execute this bequest by writing it down: "So-and-so has a claim on me for such-and-such," or "So-and-so owes me such-and-such." In the first case, where he had a debt and a liability, it is clear that the matter is very important for him, because he will die with a debt on his record. We have previously discussed, in some hadiths, the severity of the situation for one who dies with a debt. One of these hadiths, for example, is his saying (peace be upon him): . Then he said: . Every sin is forgiven for the martyr except the debt!
Similarly, in another hadith, the deceased is suspended in his grave because of his debt. In an incident that occurred during his time (peace be upon him), a man died, and after a day or two, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) preached to them and said: . The people remained silent, fearing that something was wrong, so he said to them: . It was as if he was urging them to ensure that one of them would pay off that debt on behalf of the deceased. A man stood up, whom I believe was Abu Qatadah al-Ansari, and said: "It is upon me, O Messenger of Allah." After a day or more, he asked him: "Have you paid it?" He said: "No." He urged him to pay it off, then asked him again, and he said: "I did." He (peace be upon him) said: , meaning he was being tormented because of what? Because of the debt he died with.
Therefore, for one who has a debt, it is very important for him to bequeath that his family and relatives should hasten to pay off this debt on his behalf, so that he does not live as a prisoner in his debt in his grave. And if he has a claim on people, that is the right of the heirs after him. If he conceals it and does not bequeath it, this right is lost for his heirs; it is as if he deprived them of the wealth he left for them after his death. Such a bequest is obligatory, and this hadith directly addresses it, due to his saying: , and in the other narration: .
However, jurisprudence and correct reasoning have a wide scope for expanding the meaning of the bequest through a fortiori analogy. Because if it is obligatory for one who has something or possesses something to bequeath in the detail we mentioned earlier, which is a material bequest; then we say here: It is necessary to bequeath a spiritual, legal bequest if he knows that his family and relatives are in need of such a bequest. Undoubtedly, 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 comes... For example, there is a hadith of 'Umar ibn al-Khattab and his son 'Abdullah, and al-Mughirah ibn Shu'bah, and 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 was difficult for some of the Salaf, let alone many of the Khalaf. From the Salaf, the Mother of the Believers, the Lady 'Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her), hastened to deny this hadith and attribute error to the Companion Ibn 'Umar who narrated the hadith. She said: "Ibn 'Umar erred. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) only said that about a man from the Jews whose family wept for him." It appears at first glance that this interpretation by the Lady 'Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her) is reasonable and acceptable, especially since she followed it by saying: "How can Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) say: ; so how can the deceased be tormented by the weeping of his family for him?"
She said: 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 deserves torment. But the scholars who tracked this hadith and extracted many authentic 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, erred in narrating the hadith. Therefore, the hadith must be traced in a way that first agrees with the apparent meaning of the hadith; that is, it is not interpreted as referring to the Jews as the Lady 'Aishah did, and then it does not differ or contradict the verse that the Lady 'Aishah cited as evidence. So the majority of scholars went to the view that this hadith can be interpreted in two meanings:
One is: He is tormented in the grave, but the torment here does not mean punishment, but rather pain and sorrow. This is as if it is a natural matter, but this is in worldly life; meaning, this interpreter says or imagines that if the deceased dies and his family weeps for him, the deceased knows of their weeping and is saddened by their sorrow, and this is a natural matter in this world. Others said: This meaning is not what is intended, but the intended meaning is actual torment; however, this torment only befalls one who—and here is the point, here is the crux of the matter as it is said to cite this hadith on the occasion of the bequest we wanted to expand its meaning—said: The deceased is tormented by the weeping of his family for him if he did not forbid them and did not bequeath to them: "When I die, do not wail, do not moan, do not lament for me, and so on." If he did not do that, he is afflicted with torment because of his negligence in the state of being in the abode of obligation, the worldly life. But if he fulfilled his duty, there is no torment upon him. The deceased is tormented; the family of the deceased is not meant in a comprehensive sense, so the meaning of the hadith is not every deceased, but the "the" is for the specific deceased who does not bequeath to his family and does not warn them against violating the Shari'ah because of their weeping or other matters of the prohibited that relate today to accompanying the dead and funerals; so the deceased who does not bequeath such a legal bequest, while knowing that people violate it, is the one who deserves such torment.
And to complete the discussion of this hadith, I say: The first meaning, which is interpreting the punishment as sorrow, grief, and pain, is attributed to one of our great scholars, Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him). However, as you all know, we are not Taymiyyis; we do not show partisanship for any person on earth, no matter how high or exalted, other than our Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), because he is protected from error, and no one else is. This is the evidence. This man, Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him), is one of the scholars who makes the fewest errors among us, but even so, he is not protected from error. Among his errors is his figurative interpretation of the aforementioned hadith: meaning: he feels pain. He provided evidence for this that might be considered valid or acceptable, were it not for a narration in *Sahih Muslim* from the hadith of al-Mughirah ibn Shu'bah, in which the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: ; so this suspicion invalidates that figurative interpretation. Because if we concede that the deceased feels pain, he feels it in the grave, but in the Hereafter there is only one of two things: either bliss or the Hellfire. Furthermore, another objection or rebuttal is raised against that interpretation and exegesis: we know that when a person dies, he becomes like the stones and the dust around him; he hears nothing and feels nothing at all. This is, of course, a topic I do not wish to delve into, especially since I have expanded on it somewhat in my introduction to the thesis *"The Clear Signs Regarding the Dead Not Hearing in the Hanafi School of the Sadaat."*
Therefore, the bequest here must be understood in terms of the text specifically regarding what he has or owes in wealth, and in terms of jurisprudence, it must be understood from that; namely, that it is obligatory for every Muslim to bequeath to his family what he knows they need to be instructed about. For example, if the head of the household knows that his family likes to follow people in their customs and traditions, such as taking the deceased out with flowers and wailing and the like, then he must bequeath that he requests of them to follow 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."*
In this hadith is an explanation of what distinguishes the Salaf from the Khalaf; namely, the eagerness of the Companions to respond to the commands of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and his wishes for his Ummah. You have heard the statement of Nafi'—who was the freed slave of 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar, who narrated this hadith—that 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar, after hearing this hadith, did not spend a night without his bequest written under his head.
On this occasion, it is necessary to have witnesses when writing a bequest. This witnessing was sufficient in previous times before some modern systems entered our lands. There is no doubt that some of these systems are acceptable, but even so, I believe that their entry into our lands is due to our distance from our religion. Previously, it was enough for one of us to write a small paper with a bequest for what he wanted, read it, and have two just and trustworthy witnesses; that was it. It became a paper as if it were from what? From the court of justice, the Sharia court. But today, if you wrote dozens of bequests and had dozens of just witnesses testify to them, there is no value to that unless it is registered with them there. This is, in reality, a punishment from Allah (Mighty and Majestic). The further we move away from the easy, lenient Sharia, the more we are punished with complexity in our transactions through such restrictions. It is necessary to do this, otherwise rights will truly be lost. But I remind you that we are the cause of such complexities that have become systems and laws.
After this authentic hadith come weak hadiths: the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh. Then the eighth hadith, which is the last hadith in this chapter, is from the authentic ones. After it are two weak hadiths, so we conclude this chapter with this authentic hadith. It says: From Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), who said: A man came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and said: O Messenger of Allah, which charity has the greatest reward? He said: . Al-Bukhari, Muslim, al-Nasa'i, and Ibn Majah narrated it in similar terms, and Abu Dawud, except that he said: .
In this hadith is the exhortation of the Muslim to hasten in doing good and not neglect performing righteous deeds. Among this is that he should give charity from his wealth. This authentic hadith encourages the Muslim to hasten to give charity while he is in good health and hopes to live, and not to delay it until death overtakes him and the soul reaches the throat. At that time, the bequest does not benefit him, because all his wealth has gone out from his hands and become the property of his heirs after him. This is like one who disposes of the property of another. So he (peace and blessings be upon him) answered thisThe questioner : regarding the best charity and the one with the greatest reward, saying: meaning you are not sick, and because the healthy person fears that he may fall ill, so he wants to save money. At that time, the charity cuts off his stinginess and miserliness, and is purer and more pure for his soul. So he (peace and blessings be upon him) says: . But if he reaches the death rattle, here he does not hope to live and does not fear poverty, because after that is only imminent death. I said, bequeathing: . And this so-and-so, the first one, appears to be from the poor people or from people who are in need of some assistance, or the second one appears to be from the heirs. And this is what his statement at the end of the hadith suggests to us: .
He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: ; meaning, if you bequeath to a poor person, this bequest does not benefit you anything, because when the soul reaches the throat, and if you say: "So-and-so, who inherits from you, has such and such," then he will inherit from you whether you like it or not. So the wealthy person who is healthy in body, who fears poverty and hopes for wealth and richness, should hasten and rush to give charity and do good. Otherwise, his proceeding to make a bequest when death approaches him, this bequest is not accepted from him, neither by Sharia nor by judicial ruling, as detailed by the jurists regarding judicial matters.
And this is sufficient, and praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.