Is it permissible to praise a deceased person on the pulpit in the Friday sermon if he was a person of good?
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The questioner : A young man from among the people of good passed away, O Shaykh. He was well known throughout the town, and the people of the town loved him, meaning they loved him very much. So one of the brothers, in the Friday sermon, delivered a sermon about death, and in the second part of the sermon, he mentioned our deceased brother by name and some of his characteristics.
The Shaykh : The deceased.
The questioner : The deceased by name and some of his characteristics. Is this matter prescribed? And this was after five days of his death?
The Shaykh : from...
The questioner : From the death of the person, is it a prescribed matter or is it from the eulogy?
The Shaykh : This is not prescribed, and it opens the door to evil, because people will stand up to praise every person they want to praise. Then, if a person dies who deserves praise in the eyes of some people and was not praised, there will be talk about it. So I see that this is an exercise of independent legal reasoning in the wrong place, and that the one who loves the person should ask Allah for forgiveness for him after his death without announcing it on the pulpits. Did you understand? So there are two dangers, or rather, cautions. The first is that this is not from the practice of the Salaf (the earliest generations). We have not heard that when a man who is praised for his good died, someone would stand on the pulpit and praise him. That is one. Second, it opens the door to evil. The door of evil is that every person who loves one of the preachers will stand up and preach about him and say: this one deserves to be praised on the pulpits. Third, if a person who is worthy of praise dies and the one on the pulpit does not speak about him, there will be back and forth: why did you preach on the pulpit about so-and-so yesterday but not about this one? So there is harm in this.
The questioner : It is as if there is a consensus from the people of the town, meaning they love him and praise him.
The Shaykh : They do not contradict this; they pray for him. But as for announcing it on the pulpits, as long as the Salaf (the earliest generations) died, and people who loved them died among them without a doubt, and they did not do this on the pulpit.
The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.
The Shaykh : Yes.
The Shaykh : The deceased.
The questioner : The deceased by name and some of his characteristics. Is this matter prescribed? And this was after five days of his death?
The Shaykh : from...
The questioner : From the death of the person, is it a prescribed matter or is it from the eulogy?
The Shaykh : This is not prescribed, and it opens the door to evil, because people will stand up to praise every person they want to praise. Then, if a person dies who deserves praise in the eyes of some people and was not praised, there will be talk about it. So I see that this is an exercise of independent legal reasoning in the wrong place, and that the one who loves the person should ask Allah for forgiveness for him after his death without announcing it on the pulpits. Did you understand? So there are two dangers, or rather, cautions. The first is that this is not from the practice of the Salaf (the earliest generations). We have not heard that when a man who is praised for his good died, someone would stand on the pulpit and praise him. That is one. Second, it opens the door to evil. The door of evil is that every person who loves one of the preachers will stand up and preach about him and say: this one deserves to be praised on the pulpits. Third, if a person who is worthy of praise dies and the one on the pulpit does not speak about him, there will be back and forth: why did you preach on the pulpit about so-and-so yesterday but not about this one? So there is harm in this.
The questioner : It is as if there is a consensus from the people of the town, meaning they love him and praise him.
The Shaykh : They do not contradict this; they pray for him. But as for announcing it on the pulpits, as long as the Salaf (the earliest generations) died, and people who loved them died among them without a doubt, and they did not do this on the pulpit.
The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.
The Shaykh : Yes.