And prayers and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and all his Companions.

The reader: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and all his Companions.
The author (may Allah have mercy on him) transmitted in the context of the hadiths in the chapter on the virtue of knowledge, both learning and teaching it for the sake of Allah: "From Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him), who said:

Abu Hurairah (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, "When a man dies, his deeds come to an end except for three things: Sadaqah Jariyah (ceaseless charity); a knowledge which is beneficial, or a virtuous descendant who prays for him (for the deceased)." [Muslim] .

قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم : إذا مات ابن آدم انقطع عمله إلا من ثلاث صدقة جارية أو علم ينتفع به أو ولد صالح يدعو له

Riyad as-Salihin 1383

Narrated by Muslim".

The Shaykh : In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
The author (may Allah have mercy on him), al-Nawawi, cited in his book *Riyad al-Salihin*, in the chapter on the virtue of knowledge, both learning and teaching it for the sake of Allah, from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) said: This hadith contains an exhortation, I mean an exhortation for a person to hasten with righteous deeds, because he does not know when death will overtake him. So let him hasten before his deeds are cut off, with righteous deeds that increase his elevation and reward with Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He). It is known that none of us knows when he will die or where he will die, as Allah the Exalted said: If the matter is thus, then the wise person seizes the opportunities of his life in obedience to Allah (Mighty and Majestic) before death comes to him and he has not sought forgiveness and has not repented. His statement: includes every deed that is not recorded for him or against him when he dies, because he has moved to the abode of retribution. The abode of action is the worldly life, but after that, all abodes are abodes of retribution. This means that a person gives charity in something that continues. The best of this is building mosques; building mosques is ongoing charity because the reward of the builder continues as long as this mosque stands, day and night. Muslims benefit from mosques in their prayers, their recitation, their learning of knowledge, their teaching of knowledge, and other things. Among ongoing charities is when a person endows a waqf of real estate, an orchard, or the like, for the poor and the needy, or for students of knowledge, or for those fighting in the path of Allah, or the like of that. Among ongoing charities is when a person prints beneficial books for Muslims to read and benefit from, whether they are from authors of his time or from previous authors. The important thing is that they are beneficial books from which Muslims benefit after him. Among ongoing charities is repairing roads; if a person repairs roads, straightens them, and removes harm from them, and people continue to benefit from this, then that is among ongoing charities. The rule in ongoing charities is every righteous deed that continues for a person after his death. As for the second: knowledge from which benefit is derived. This is the most general, comprehensive, and beneficial of them. That a person leaves behind knowledge from which Muslims benefit, whether he bequeaths it after him through oral teaching or through writing. Composing books, teaching people, and people circulating this information, as long as it continues, the reward of the teacher is ongoing and continuous, because people benefit from this knowledge that he bequeathed. And the third: a child, which includes male and female, meaning a son or a daughter. It includes your son from your loins and your daughter from your loins, and the sons of your sons and the sons of your daughters, and the daughters of your sons and the daughters of your daughters, and so on. A righteous child who prays for a person after his death; the person is also rewarded for this. Look at how the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) said: and he did not say a righteous child who prays for him, or recites the Qur'an for him, or gives charity on his behalf, or fasts for him. He did not say it that way, even though all of these are righteous deeds. Rather, he said: And in this is proof that supplication for your father and your mother, your grandfather, and your grandmother is better than charity on their behalf, and better than prayer for them, and better than fasting for them. Because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) cannot guide his Ummah except to the best of what he knows for them. No prophet sent by Allah guided his Ummah except to the best of what he knew for them. So if the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) had known that giving charity on behalf of your father or your mother was better than supplication, he would have said charity, not supplication. So when he turned away from charity, fasting, prayer, and reciting the Qur'an, and the position is a position of speaking about deeds, when he turned away from these deeds to supplication, we know with certainty, without any doubt, that supplication is better than that. So if a questioner asked us, which is better: do I give charity for my father, or do I supplicate for him? We would say supplication is better, because the Messenger guided us this way and said: And the strange thing is that the common people and those like the common people think that if a person gives charity on behalf of his father, or fasts a day for his father, or recites a portion of the Qur'an for his father, or the like of that, they see that it is better than supplication. And the source of this ignorance, otherwise, whoever reflects on the texts knows that supplication is better. For this reason, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did not guide in any hadith, with a single letter, to a righteous deed that a person makes for his parents, ever. The utmost of what is there is that specific cases occurred where the Companions asked him whether he should give charity on behalf of his father who is dead, or on behalf of his mother who is dead, and he would say yes, there is no harm. But he did not exhort the Ummah to that, nor did he guide them to it. But he was asked about specific cases: Sa'd ibn Ubadah (may Allah be pleased with him) But when he wanted to legislate a general legislation for the Ummah, he said: We ask Allah to forgive us and you, and our parents, and all the Muslims.