All praise is due to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our own souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whoever Allah guides, none can mislead, and whoever He misleads, none can guide.

The Shaykh : All praise is due to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our own souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whoever Allah guides, none can mislead, and whoever He misleads, none can guide. 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, the best of speech is the speech of Allah, the best of guidance is the guidance of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), and the worst of matters are those that are newly invented. Every newly invented matter is a religious innovation, every religious innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire.
Tonight's lesson is from *Al-Raghba' wa al-Tarhib*, and in accordance with our practice of limiting the teaching to authentic hadiths, whether good or sound, and avoiding those of lesser status, the topic is "Encouragement to dig graves, wash the dead, and shroud them". The first hadith is sound. The author (may Allah have mercy on him) said: Abu Rafi' (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Al-Tabarani narrated it in *Al-Kabir*, and its narrators are relied upon in the authentic collections. Al-Hakim said it is authentic according to the conditions of Muslim. Its wording is: to the end. The tracing of the hadith includes other narrations that are not within our scope.
In this hadith, there is a strong exhortation for a Muslim to take charge of washing the body of his deceased Muslim brother first. In reality, this is one of the matters that has become abandoned and neglected today by the masses of practicing Muslims, let alone others. I mean that a Muslim should take charge of washing his Muslim brother and not hand over the washing to those who have made washing the dead of Muslims a profession, performing it only for a wage they seek from the state or elsewhere. Washing the dead, like shrouding them, preparing them, and burying them, is an act of worship among the Islamic acts of worship that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) exhorted us to perform. One of the types of exhortation regarding this is this hadith that is before you, in which he (peace be upon him) said: The concealment mentioned here includes two things. The first is something that does not usually indicate righteousness or wickedness, namely what may come out of the deceased while he is being washed, such as waste or... This is a natural occurrence in some people who have a specific constitution or health condition or similar causes. Something may come out of such people. So, first, it should be concealed by the one who took charge of washing and shrouding him. The other thing, which is more important than the first, is what may appear on the deceased while he is being washed, a darkness in a matter related to spiritual or moral aspects. The washer may feel that what he saw on this deceased, for whom he took charge of the washing, is a sign of his lack of righteousness; this is the least that can be said. Whether what the washer saw of the deceased was of the first type or the second type, he must keep it secret from people and let it remain a secret in his heart, never disclosing it. Whoever washed a dead person like this and concealed what he saw on him that is not good to display or spread, Allah will forgive him forty major sins. In the other narration, it is once. I regret to say now that I did not notice when I attended this lesson the difference between the two narrations. The first narration is and the other is . There is a difference between the two narrations, and although this difference can be reconciled according to the rules of usul al-fiqh (the principles of jurisprudence) by applying the absolute to the qualified, the condition for that is that both narrations must be established from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). However, if one is established and the other is not, then there is no need for us to reconcile them based on that rule. And we are in the etiquette of washing the dead, that rule which says this dead person does not deserve this condolence. If one of the narrations is not authentic, why should we occupy ourselves with it? I say, with regret, that I did not notice the disagreement between the narrations to verify whether both are established or only one. So, this is left for the next lesson, if Allah wills, so that we do not speak without knowledge. In any case, in this hadith, there is a very great exhortation for a Muslim to take charge of washing his Muslim brother and to conceal what he may see on him, as we mentioned earlier. In it, Allah (Mighty and Majestic) forgives him forty sins. These sins may be major sins, as in the first narration, and that is not difficult for Allah. Or they may be less than that, for the favor of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is broader than that. In another hadith that will come shortly, if Allah wills, the absolute narration is confirmed. But the matter depends on returning to the chain of the first narration, which is what we are currently dealing with, and it is his (peace be upon him) saying: And peace . There is no doubt that the one who takes charge of washing the dead does so not out of desire for what is with Allah, but out of greed for what is with the servants of Allah in terms of wages and material gain. There is no doubt that such people do not care about adhering to such etiquette. They may talk about the bad things they saw in the one they took charge of washing. So, in this hadith, there is an indirect warning against the washer talking about anything he sees in the one he took charge of washing. Then, in the hadith, there is an exhortation to another matter that has unfortunately become a profession, and we cannot see anyone doing it except what may happen in some villages or suburbs far from the capital. That is his (peace be upon him) saying: Meaning he covers it and protects it from being dug up, whether by wild animals or by some people who have a great interest in digging up the graves of Muslims. In this second part of the hadith, there is an exhortation from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) for a Muslim to dig the grave of his Muslim brother so that he may protect him, cover him, and hide him. He says, in explaining the virtue of the one who digs the grave for a Muslim: In this hadith, or in this analogy, there is an explanation of a matter that the masses of wealthy Muslims today have long neglected, which is the virtue of the one who facilitates for his poor Muslim brother who cannot find a shelter or dwelling to take refuge in. We take the virtue of this from the analogy, because the one who digs a grave for his brother is as if he housed him in a dwelling until the Day of Resurrection. The thing being compared is usually less than the thing it is compared to. So, housing a living poor Muslim in a house that shelters and protects him is undoubtedly better than digging a grave for him or other Muslims that covers and protects him until the Day of Resurrection. The Messenger (peace be upon him) says: So, in it, there is an exhortation for the wealthy among Muslims to think of the poor and needy who cannot find a dwelling and live perhaps in cramped quarters, finding difficulty in that from many aspects, including that it is not easy for them to secure the rent for this dwelling in many cases. So, whoever helps his Muslim brother and provides him with a dwelling, whether by buying him a dwelling or relieving him of the rent for the dwelling he lives in, this is even more deserving of reward, as if he housed him until the Day of Judgment.
Thus, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) encourages Muslims to cooperate and to fulfill some of the rights that the living owe to the dead. There is no doubt and no ambiguity that such guidance does not exist in other generations. This indicates the perfection and completeness of the Islamic Shari'ah and the truth of Allah the Great, as He says: Here is a point worth noting, which is a comment on His saying (peace be upon him): As we have mentioned to you repeatedly, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) established principles and rules for Muslims, commanding them to adhere to them so that, if they maintain them, they will preserve their Muslim identity and be distinguished not only by their beliefs and morals, but also by their appearances and actions. Among these is that he made the grave of a Muslim distinct, which is an internal matter, unlike the external matter, because we are speaking about digging the grave. The Messenger (peace be upon him) made it so that...