He said, may Allah have mercy on him: "Chapter on hastening with the funeral, from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) who said"

The reciter: He said, may Allah have mercy on him: "Chapter on hastening with the funeral, from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) who said:

Walk quickly with a funeral, for if the dead person was good it is a good condition to which you are sending him on, but it he was otherwise it is an evil of which you are riding yourselves.

أسرعوا بالجنازة فإن تك صالحة فخير تقدمونها إليه، وإن تك سوى ذلك فشر تضعونه عن رقابكم

Sunan Abi Dawud 3181Sahih (Al-Albani)

Agreed upon by al-Bukhari and Muslim, and in a narration by Muslim:

It is good that you hasten it to him

فخير تقدمونها عليه

And from Abu Sa'id al-Khudri (may Allah be pleased with him) who said: The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) used to say:

When a dead body is placed on a bier and men carry it on their shoulders, if he was a pious man, it (corpse) says: 'Take me in haste.' But if he was not righteous, it says to its bearers: 'Woe to it. Where are you taking it?' Everything except man hears its voice. Had a human being heard its voice, he would have surely fallen into swoon.

إذا وضعت الجنازة فاحتملها الرجال على أعناقهم فإن كانت صالحة قالت: قدموني، وإن كانت غير صالحة قالت لأهلها: يا ويلها أين تذهبون بها؟ يسمع صوتها كل شيء إلا الإنسان، ولو سمع الإنسان لصعق

Riyad as-Salihin 942

Narrated by al-Bukhari".

The Shaykh : In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
The author said in his book *Riyad al-Saliheen*: "Chapter on hastening with the funeral". Hastening with the funeral includes hastening in preparing it, hastening in accompanying it, and hastening in burying it. This is because when a person dies, he is either righteous or otherwise. If he is righteous, then detaining him is an obstacle between him and the bliss Allah has prepared for him in his grave, because he is moving from this world to something better and more excellent. For when he is on his deathbed and in the struggle of death, he is given good news, and it is said: "O his soul, rejoice in the mercy of Allah and His pleasure". He longs for this good news and loves to be hastened and to be expedited. So if he is detained, there is something of a harm done to him and an obstacle between him and the bliss Allah has prepared for him. And if he is not righteous, refuge with Allah, then it should not be that there is [a delay] between us; we should hasten to get rid of him. For this reason, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) said: Hasten with it in its preparation, accompanying, and burial; do not delay it. Good means better than what he left behind; you hasten it to him, because it is hastened to mercy, bliss, joy, and light, so you hasten it to good. Meaning: it is not righteous. You are safe from it; you escape from it, because in one who has no good, there is no good in his remaining. So it is derived from this hadith that it is recommended to hasten with the funeral and not to delay it. What some people do today when a person dies is that they say, "Wait until his family arrives from every direction, until some of them come, some from Europe or America," and they say, "Wait until he arrives after a day or two." This is a harm to the deceased and disobedience to the command of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). If his family comes and he has already been buried, they pray over his grave; the matter is broad and praise be to Allah. And if he is detained so that they may come, what benefit is there for him? It will not benefit him except by supplicating for him in the prayer over him, and this is achieved if they pray over him at his grave. There is no justification for this detention at all. If someone were to say: "Did not the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) die on a Monday and not be buried until the night of Wednesday?" We say: Yes, but the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) wanted not to bury the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) until they established a caliph for the servants of Allah after him, so that the earth would not be left without a caliph for Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in His earth. For this reason, when the pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) was completed, they buried the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). And this is an apparent and clear cause. And his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): It is derived from this that it should be expressed with words that indicate the meaning without badness, because it is the counterpart of the righteous, the corrupt. But he (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) turned away from the word "if it is corrupt" to his saying: And this is from the chapter of proper conduct in wording. Proper conduct in wording has a wonderful status. Look at His saying (Glorified and Exalted is He) about the jinn: When they intended good, they attributed it to Allah. And as for evil, they said: They did not say "evil that Allah intended," even though Allah intends both good and evil. But the evil that Allah intends is not evil in its action, but in its effects. As for His action (Mighty and Majestic), there is no doubt that it is good, but He decrees evil for the sake of good for a wisdom that Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) intends. So the important thing is that a person should be proper in formulating words without compromising the meaning. It is mentioned that a king saw a dream in which he saw that his teeth had fallen out, and he was worried about it. "My teeth have fallen out," so he gathered those who interpret dreams, meaning those who explain them. One of them said to him, "Your retinue will die," interpreting the dream of falling teeth as the death of his retinue and family. So the king was frightened and did not like this interpretation. He ordered the man to be flogged. Then he called another and said to him: "He saw that his teeth had fallen out."