The ruling on accompanying a funeral that is filled with religious innovations and imitating the funerals of the People of the Book.
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : What is the ruling on accompanying a funeral that is filled with religious innovations and imitating the funerals of the People of the Book? For example, placing wreaths and the like?
The Shaykh : The reality is that accompanying funerals has become a tradition today, and if only it were a tradition of the Muslims; rather, it is a tradition of the disbelievers in decorating funerals with flowers. It is well known among the scholars that if a community is doing something wrong, attending it is wrong unless one rebukes that wrong. Today, the Muslim is between two things: if he wants to accompany the funeral and gain the virtue of accompanying it, he is either to remain silent, which is not permissible, because he will be recorded among those who attend the wrong without rebuking it, or he is to rebuke it, which is extremely difficult today due to the people's ignorance and their habituation to these religious innovations and traditions.
Since ancient times, before the existence of these new religious innovations like the flowers and the ceremonies related to the car and its accompanying, and decorating the car itself with flowers, many discussions have taken place—regrettably—among the scholars of Al-Azhar. The majority of them approve of shouting and glorifying Allah before the funerals. In a recent era, some of the mu'adhdhins would recite the Burdah poem loudly to entertain people before the funeral. So, there arose in Egypt a group of the people of the Sunnah, the most famous of whom in this field isThe Shaykh : "Mahmud Khattab al-Subki"; he rebuked these things, so the Al-Azhar scholars rose up against him. He wrote treatises, and they wrote treatises in response to him. Such customs continue to prevail, and they have added to them these foreign Western religious innovations. Therefore, we see that the obligatory thing in accompanying a funeral, if it occurs, is that it is better for the Muslim not to participate with the people in their religious innovations. However, if the obligatory thing does not occur, then this obligatory thing must not be left, so it is necessary. And in this case, one falls into the situation of rebuking the wrong at the third and final level, which is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him):Sahih Muslim 49a.
The Shaykh : The reality is that accompanying funerals has become a tradition today, and if only it were a tradition of the Muslims; rather, it is a tradition of the disbelievers in decorating funerals with flowers. It is well known among the scholars that if a community is doing something wrong, attending it is wrong unless one rebukes that wrong. Today, the Muslim is between two things: if he wants to accompany the funeral and gain the virtue of accompanying it, he is either to remain silent, which is not permissible, because he will be recorded among those who attend the wrong without rebuking it, or he is to rebuke it, which is extremely difficult today due to the people's ignorance and their habituation to these religious innovations and traditions.
Since ancient times, before the existence of these new religious innovations like the flowers and the ceremonies related to the car and its accompanying, and decorating the car itself with flowers, many discussions have taken place—regrettably—among the scholars of Al-Azhar. The majority of them approve of shouting and glorifying Allah before the funerals. In a recent era, some of the mu'adhdhins would recite the Burdah poem loudly to entertain people before the funeral. So, there arose in Egypt a group of the people of the Sunnah, the most famous of whom in this field isThe Shaykh : "Mahmud Khattab al-Subki"; he rebuked these things, so the Al-Azhar scholars rose up against him. He wrote treatises, and they wrote treatises in response to him. Such customs continue to prevail, and they have added to them these foreign Western religious innovations. Therefore, we see that the obligatory thing in accompanying a funeral, if it occurs, is that it is better for the Muslim not to participate with the people in their religious innovations. However, if the obligatory thing does not occur, then this obligatory thing must not be left, so it is necessary. And in this case, one falls into the situation of rebuking the wrong at the third and final level, which is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him):
He who amongst you sees something abominable should modify it with the help of his hand; and if he has not strength enough to do it, then he should do it with his tongue, and if he has not strength enough to do it, (even) then he should (abhor it) from his heart, and that is the least of faith.
من رأى منكم منكرًا فليغيِّره بيده ، فإن لم يستطع فبلسانه ، فإن لم يستطع فبقَلبِه ، وذلك أضعف الإيمان
Source
www.al-albany.com
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.