For Those Left Behind
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Ep. 1: The Janazah Prayer | For Those Left Behind
What are the spiritual dimensions and rulings pertaining to the Janazah prayer? How do we pray it, and why do we recite what we do? Does it matter how many people attend the Janazah?
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
0:44 What is the Janazah prayer?
1:06 How to pray Salatul Janazah
How to pray Salatul Janazah:
1. Read 4 takbeerat
2. After the first takbeer, recite Surah Al-Fatiha
3. After the second takbeer, recite Salawat on the Prophet (pbuh) the way that you would do in salah (Salatul Ibrahimiya)
4. After the third takbeer, recite du'a for the deceased
5. After the fourth takbeer, make du'a for yourself, the ummah and the deceased
6. Make tasleem, either one or two, depending on the school of thought or the imam leading the prayer
Du'a to recite during Janazah prayer:
اللَّهُمَّ اغْفِرْ لِحَيِّنَا وَمَيِّتِنَا وَشَاهِدِنَا وَغَائِبِنَا وَصَغِيرِنَا وَكَبِيرِنَا وَذَكَرِنَا وَأُنْثَانَا اللَّهُمَّ مَنْ أَحْيَيْتَهُ مِنَّا فَأَحْيِهِ عَلَى الإِسْلاَمِ وَمَنْ تَوَفَّيْتَهُ مِنَّا فَتَوَفَّهُ عَلَى الإِيمَانِ اللَّهُمَّ لاَ تَحْرِمْنَا أَجْرَهُ وَلاَ تُضِلَّنَا بَعْدَهُ
Oh Allah, forgive our living and our dead, those who are present and those who are absent, our young and our old, our males and our females. O Allah, whomever of us You cause to live, let him live in Islam, and whomever of us You cause to die, let him die in (a state of) faith. Oh Allah, do not deprive us of his reward, and do not let us go astray after him.
2:53 What is the purpose of the special format of Janazah prayer?
4:06 Janazah as a communal obligation & right of every Muslim
7:57 Reward of praying Janazah
8:27 Does it matter how many people attend Janazah?
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. When you came into this world, you came in with adhan and no salah. When you leave this world, you leave with salah and no adhan. And it's as if to say that your entire life is like the time between adhan and salah. And subhanAllah, when you were in the womb of your mother, with the same stroke, the angel wrote your date of death and your lifespan. And so as you were coming into this world, you were already on your way out of it. And it is a profound reminder for us to constantly pray until we are prayed upon as we come into the short life and we leave the short life. Salatul Janazah is a rite of the Muslim upon the Muslim. It is a way of us to bid farewell to our loved ones and to remind ourselves that we too will follow that same path one day. And the wise person is the one that puts their own janazah in front of them and lives their life in accordance with that Salatul Janazah. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam taught us to pray the janazah with a very unique formula. We go into Salatul Janazah and we read four takbirat. After the first takbir, we recite Suratul Fatiha. After the second takbir, we recite salawat on the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. The way that we would in salah, salah Ibrahimiyya is a preferred way. Allahumma salli ala Muhammadin wa ala aali Muhammad kama sallayta ala Ibrahim wa ala aali Ibrahim innaka hameedun majeed until the end of the salawat and the prayer. And then you do the third takbir and you recite du'a for the deceased. And one of the ways that is legislated from the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam is the du'a, Allahumma khfirli hayyina wa mayyitina wa shahidina wa ghaibina wa saghirina wa kabirina wa dhakrina wa unthana Oh Allah, forgive our living ones, our dead ones, our present ones, our absent ones, our elderly ones,
our young ones, our male ones, our female ones. Allahumma man ahyaytahu minna fa ahyihi alal Islam wa man tawafaytahu minna fa tawafahu alal iman Oh Allah, whoever you have decreed to live amongst us, then let them live upon faith. And whoever you have decreed to take from us, then let them die upon faith. So we make this du'a that the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam taught us to make, and then we make du'a on the deceased in a heartfelt way, in a sincere way, in this short takbir to takbir. After the fourth takbir, you make du'a for yourself, for the ummah, and if you'd like, you could even continue to make du'a for the deceased, one of the ways that some of the scholars mentioned, Allahumma la tahribna ajrahu wa la tudhillana ba'da Oh Allah, do not forbid us of the reward, and do not let us go astray after him. And then there is a taslim, either one taslim or two taslims, which we'll talk about inshallah ta'ala in a minute. But I want us to just think about this. Why do we recite what we recite in Salatul Janazah? And the scholars mentioned a few reasons. One of them is that if you pay attention, it is basically the salah shortened. The way you begin your salah is with Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen, with the thana and then the surah al-Fatiha. The way you end your salah is with salawat on the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. So that's one way that the scholars mentioned the reasoning for which we pray janazah in this way. Another thing that the scholars mentioned is that what are the ingredients of an accepted dua? An accepted dua has what? Hamd, praise of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, and then it ends with salawat on the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. And so the Salatul Janazah has the perfect formula of dua by assuring that we have praise and that we have prayers upon the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam before we pray upon our loved ones and the ummah as a whole. So you have that. And that's also why some of the scholars mentioned that there is one taslim according to some of the schools because it is not a complete salah.
Now, obviously, if you're praying janazah behind someone, then you will do what they do inshallah. So it's not a problem if they do one taslim or if they do two taslims. Now I wanna speak about janazah as a right of the Muslim on the Muslim, okay? Because this is a community right. And we often don't think of it that way. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said, the rights of the Muslim upon the Muslim are five. He said SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam to respond to the salam. And what did the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam say is one of the signs of the day of judgment, that people only say salam to those that they know, okay? So it's no longer a greeting between the Muslims. It's a greeting for the cliques amongst the Muslims. And so you neglect those. It's as if to say, if you don't have something added to your being a Muslim, then you don't deserve my salam. The second thing the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said is visiting the sick. And I know that, you know, in the midst of a pandemic, that becomes complicated, but in regular times, I want you to think about how neglected this sunnah is of visiting sick people, not because you have to, not because they're your family, not because you're, you know, you're expected to because of some closeness that they have to you, but just for the sake of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, going and visiting the sick and comforting them and making dua for them. That is a beautiful community practice that is one of the neglected sunnah, the neglected practices of our time. The third thing the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said is following the janazah, okay? So think of it in light of the previous two that I mentioned that you pray janazah and you bury the person properly, that you attend the janazah and you follow the janazah. Then the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said that you accept their invitations. Who do we usually accept invitations from? Who do we usually invite, right? People of a certain class or people of a certain connection. The fifth thing the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said that you respond to their sneeze. When someone sneezes and they say, Alhamdulillah, you say, Yarhamuka Allah, may Allah have mercy on you. So it is a right and it is not something
that should be deemed only necessary when someone is significant. And even if you move away from the technical part of it, right? Salatul Janazah is fard kifaya. It has to be done by someone. It's a communal obligation, not fard'een, not an obligation upon every individual. But do you notice the discrepancy sometimes between someone that was well-known and someone that was not? Someone that has a large family in a community and someone that doesn't? Think about that narration of the Abyssinian woman that used to clean the masjid. And we always invoke her example about the virtue of cleaning the masjid, but let's look at it from another angle as well. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam comes to the masjid and he notices this woman is missing right away. It wasn't like a month later. Right away the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam says, where's this woman that used to clean the masjid? The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam missed her presence. And they said, Ya Rasulullah, she passed away last night. And the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam says, well, why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you call me so I could come and pray the janazah upon her? They said, Ya Rasulullah, we didn't wanna bother you. So we just did it ourselves. They carried out her ghusl. They prayed janazah upon her and they took her to the graveyard and it was an inconvenient time. So they said, we didn't wanna bother you, Ya Rasulullah. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam could have said, you know, la hawla wa la quwwata illa billah, I missed out. Instead the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam says, daluni ala qabriha, take me to her grave. Take me to where you buried her. And they go out, they follow the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and he prays janazah on her again. And he says, SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, that these graves are chambers of darkness and they are lit up by my salah upon them. There is a beautiful lesson there that no one should be treated like they're too insignificant for salah or janazah. And especially in a time when you have a lot of janazahs, you see the discrepancy, right? You see the discrepancy. And if you move even beyond this idea that someone is insignificant, not worthy of you, just because they're your brother or sister in Islam for you to make the effort to go pray janazah on them,
then the second thing is your own individual incentive. Look how beautiful our deen is. It incentivizes things that we should do anyway. So the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said, the one who prays salatul janazah has the reward of uhud in good deeds. And the one who follows the janazah has the reward of two uhud in good deeds. If you've ever seen uhud, it's a huge mountain. And so if you think the person's too insignificant, then go for your own individual reward, your own incentive. And the third thing, Ibn Abbas SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam when his son passed away, he said, I asked Qurayb to go out and to look to see who gathered for the janazah. And Qurayb came back and said, Alhamdulillah, it's a lot of people. Ibn Abbas SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said, I heard the messenger of Allah SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam say that no Muslim dies and 40 people gather to pray janazah on that person, except that Allah would allow them to intercede on their behalf. So let's try to have large janazahs, sincere janazahs, because no one is insignificant. There is plenty of incentive. And we can be intercessors for our brothers and sisters as we bid them farewell.
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