For Those Left Behind
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Ep. 4: The Best Deeds on Their Behalf | For Those Left Behind
If the dead could speak, what would they ask us to do for them? What are the prescribed deeds that we are to do on their behalf?
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:25 Giving charity on behalf of the deceased
If your loved one that has passed away could speak, they would ask you to do good deeds on their behalf. They would ask you to give charity. They need good deeds made on their behalf more than money spent on a funeral, celebration of life or tombstone, because those will not benefit them in the grave. It is good deeds, according to the Prophet ﷺ, that will give glad tidings to the righteous souls as beautiful visitors in their grave. This is more pleasing.
Here are 5 things to do for the dead when they pass away:
1. Repay their debts to people and seek forgiveness on their behalf from anyone that they wronged or harmed
2. Repay their debts to Allah and any obligations of worship that they did not get to fulfill. These can include hajj and any obligatory fasts that they did not make-up, but excludes the obligatory prayers
3. Perform deeds that are an extension of the good that they inspired or taught themselves
4. Perform deeds that are specified in the sunnah that benefit them after their death
5. Perform deeds that are not specified but are of general good
04:15 Repaying debts to others
06:23 Repaying debts to Allah
08:22 Deeds that are an inspired extension of their good
09:46 Deeds specified in the sunnah that benefit them
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. A man comes to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and he says to him that my mother died suddenly. And he said, I think, law takallamat tasaddaqat If she were able to speak, then she would want to give charity. As-salatu ala al-anwati arhamukullahu So he asks the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, so can I give charity on her behalf? And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says to give charity on her behalf. Now, the reason why I start with this narration is because look at the point that he started from. If she could speak, what would she want me to do? If she was able to tell me, what would she tell me to do? Would she tell me to make my grave more beautiful? Would she tell me, you know, the tombstone's not the right marble, it's not the right granite, can you make it a little higher? Can you engrave it with this? Can you put Surat al-Fatiha on it? Can you burn some incense on top of it? You know, make sure that you watch my favorite TV show for me. What would she ask you to do? What would your loved one ask you to do? They would ask you to give charity. They would ask you to do good deeds on their behalf because that's what they need right now. And in fact, they would be angry with you and admonish you over the money that's wasted on things that are of no benefit to them whatsoever, right? And SubhanAllah, you see that sometimes, that there is so much that's spent on the funeral, on the celebrations of life that come after, on the tombstone, on the grave, things that of course do end up in the realm of the sinful even. But at the end of the day, like come back to it, what would that person say to me if they could speak? What would they want me to do? And then consider the other side of the realm. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam mentions the righteous person who is in their grave and then suddenly a visitor comes.
And this visitor is exceedingly beautiful, has a beautiful smell, has beautiful clothes. And as this visitor comes to the grave, the visitor says, abshir, glad tidings, billatiyasurruk, with that which makes you pleased and that which you were promised. And the person responds and says, that face, this face, this wajh, what a beautiful face. And this type of face, wajhukal wajh, yajee'u bilkhair, this is a person that is definitely coming with good news. I know that if I was expecting a punishment, this is not the person that would come to me to give me bad news. This is a person that would come to me to give me good news. Man ant, who are you? Because you have to be bringing good news. Are you one of the righteous souls? Are you an angel? Who are you? And imagine how stunned the person is. May Allah make us that person. When the one responds and says, that I am your amal as-salih, I am your good deeds. SubhanAllah, I mean, this is a consistent trend we're talking about the hereafter. That our good deeds will be personified, just as our sins, and just as our limbs will become people that testify against us on the day of judgment. May Allah protect us from using our tongue, using our limbs, our hands in ways that are displeasing to him. And the same way a person meets their Siyam, meets their fasting on the day of judgment, meets their recitation of the Quran on the day of judgment as people that come to give good news. Now, anything in this life that you could have given to that person, right? You think about the most beautiful piece of jewelry that you would have bought, the most precious gift you would have bought, the best day of your lives together. Anything that you had ever done in this life to benefit them or to make them happy or make both of you happy in the process, that has died along with that person in the sense that they can't benefit from it anymore, right?
But when you do good deeds on their behalf, and those good deeds accompany them in their grave, and those visitors come to them, or that visitor comes to them, and that is the good deed that you continued on their behalf, how pleased is that person going to be with your action? So I want to actually break this down into five things to do for the dead when they pass away, inshallah ta'ala. So you can actually remember these five things. And I'll start with this hadith once again, in similar vein to the first one that we started off with. A woman comes to the messenger of Allah Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, and also says, Ya Rasulullah, my mother has died, and she had some fasting that she had to make up, some obligatory fasting that she had to make up. And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says, do you see that if your mother would have died in debt that you would have been expected, or you would have taken care of her debt? And the woman said, yes, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, then go ahead and fast on behalf of your mother. So thinking about the fasting, the siyam as a part of a debt that is owed on her behalf. So you really want to think about it in terms of debts and deeds. But let's expand first the concept of debts. So we're going to go through five things. The first one, you know, the scholars used to say, glad tidings to the one who dies, and their sins die with them. Their sins die with them. You don't want to be dependent on someone else to pay off your debts or to go seek forgiveness on your behalf to someone who you hurt and you never got a chance to apologize to. So first and foremost, you know, you think about yourself that you don't want to be in that situation where you need someone to go do that for you. But when someone passes away, think about debts and harm in regards to other people. Immediately, see if they have debts that they owe to people. Immediately, see if there are people that have been harmed by them or that feel that they were wronged by them and go seek forgiveness on their behalf. Ask them to forgive your loved one and say, listen, you know, death has come. This was a reminder. Please do forgive them.
They will be in need of that. So let it go. Let's let the grudges die as well. And SubhanAllah, you know, in the end times where you see the increase of riba, the increase of usury and interest, you see the increase of debt, and you see the increase of spiritual diseases, you see the increase of grudges and tensions and hatred between people. So this becomes that much more urgent for us to go and to seek forgiveness and pay off the debts on behalf of our loved ones in case they were there. So search for those. Number two are debts to Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Not that debts to Allah are less important, but I'm talking about the priority at the immediate time of death is to make sure that that person is only meeting Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala with the deeds between them and Allah, not the deeds that are between them and other people. So debts between them and Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. This refers to obligations that they did not get to fulfill. And so this first and foremost starts off with the obvious, hajj. There are many times people make hajj on behalf of their loved ones because their loved ones were not able to make hajj themselves because they never got the chance to. Okay, so hajj. After you make your own fareela, you make your own obligatory hajj, if you have the opportunity to do hajj on behalf of that person. Siyam, fasting, which is in the example that was mentioned by the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam to that woman. This is referring to obligatory fasts that were to be made up and the person passed away before they were able to make up their fast. And that's why, by the way, it's important for you to let people know yourself. If you have fasts that you need to make up, your close ones, your loved ones, someone, so that if you pass away, they could make up those fasts on your behalf. Why not salah? Why not prayer? Because prayer is an obligation at all times, no matter what your situation is, right? Hajj could be an obligation only when you have the capability and you just might not meet that financial and physical capability. Fasting, there are reasons for which a person will need to make up fasts. But prayer, there is no excuse to delay the prayer, to miss the prayer,
even if a person can only pray with their hands, with their eyes. And if a person was unconscious, then they're forgiven for that anyway. But so long as a person was conscious, then prayer was their obligation. And if they did not fulfill that obligation, then you are not able to fulfill that obligation on their behalf. So that takes care of the first two things. So debts to people and debts to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Then come the deeds. And I'm gonna categorize the deeds into three, InshaAllah Ta'ala, to make it easy. The first of those categories, meaning the third of this list of five, are deeds that are an extension of the good that they inspired or taught themselves. Meaning what? Every time we do a good deed, guess who gets a share of that reward? Rasulullah SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. Because without the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, we would not know how to pray. We would not know how to connect to our Lord. So the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam gets a share of the reward every single time. You know, if someone narrated the hadith that established that good deed and everyone acts upon that hadith, then the narrator somewhere in there, you know, and we usually only mention, well, Sahabi, but everyone in the chain of narrators gets the reward, bi-idhnillahi Ta'ala, for the deed that was inspired. A parent who taught their kids some sort of good, or a friend who taught their circle of friends, or taught their community some sort of hasana, some sort of good, and the people act upon it, even if they're not intending every single time, this is on behalf of my parents who were taught by my grandparents, who were taught by their grandparents, or my friend who was taught by, no. Every time you act upon those deeds, InshaAllah Ta'ala, that person is getting a reward of it. And that is the mercy of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la that is far greater than the mercy that we could assign. So be great, right? You know, especially with parents, especially with people that taught you to do well, continue to make progress to Allah, and that will be considered progress for that person as well, bi-idhnillahi Ta'ala. The fourth one, which is by far the largest category, are good deeds that are specified in the sunnah.
What I mean by that is that the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi wa Sallam said that these particular deeds benefit a person after their death. First and foremost, we already mentioned du'a, right? So du'a, starting off with istighfar, with seeking forgiveness. Then you see sadaqah, and the best type of sadaqah is sadaqah jariyah, a continuous charity, one that continues to flow. So for example, the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi wa Sallam specifically told Sa'd ibn Ubadah radiAllahu ta'ala anhu to construct a well for his mother, and Sa'd ibn Ubadah even donated a garden for his mother. So the types of projects that are ongoing sadaqah are the best type of sadaqah, but any type of charity on behalf of the deceased, ibn Ubadah radiAllahu ta'ala, is accepted. And of course, when it comes to du'a, a righteous child's du'a is better than the du'a of anyone else, right? So du'a, sadaqah, sadaqah jariyah being the first of them. Can I do hajj and umrah even if a person has fulfilled their obligatory hajj? Yes, you can do hajj on behalf of a person, you can do umrah on behalf of a person. SubhanAllah, I once met a person in one of my own groups who was doing hajj on behalf of Imam al-Nawawi, rahimahullah ta'ala. I said, subhanAllah, why Imam al-Nawawi? He said, because Riyad al-Sarihin changed my life. So he'd done multiple hajjs and mashAllah, he decided to do hajj on behalf of Imam al-Nawawi. So if you wanna do hajj on behalf of your loved one or umrah on behalf of your loved ones, and even people that just benefited you, this is something that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la has given us to where we can keep connected. Knowledge that is of benefit, okay? Knowledge that continues to benefit. So again, that's inspired knowledge and that is purchasing something or extending a school or funding da'wah, funding beneficial knowledge, right? On behalf of that person. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam mentioned visiting and honoring the family and friends of the person that has passed away. This is beautiful. He did it SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam with Khadijah radiAllahu anha,
with her family and her friends. He would always send a share on her behalf. And we also find Abdullah ibn Umar radiAllahu ta'ala anhumah, honoring the children of his father's friends. SubhanAllah as a means of honoring his father. So these are deeds that are specified in the sunnah of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. Right, and they broadly fall within the category of du'a, charity and beneficial knowledge, right? So doing one of those things or funding something within that category. Don't pay someone to make du'a, right? That's different, but funding a beneficial project, funding something InshaAllah ta'ala all of that will be an extension. The fifth category are all good deeds that are done on their behalf. What is the ruling on Islah al-thawab on good deeds in general, reaching them? Meaning, can I do any good deed like reading Quran, for example, or anything else, right? In terms of offering a nafila, a prayer on their behalf. All of the ulama would say that you could read a khatm Quran, for example, and then the du'a that you make at the end of khatm al-Quran, for example, you could dedicate that du'a to making du'a for the person. But then the difference of opinion comes to the deeds that the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam did not specifically mention, whether or not there is a limit on those deeds. You'll find that a large number of scholars have said that all good deeds, based on an analogy of what the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam has mentioned, all good deeds that are of course specified, legislated good deeds themselves, count as on their behalf with a proper intention. And inshallah ta'ala that would count. But what I would say, and Allah knows best, is for the most part, right? Stick to as much of what the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam has specified, and inshallah there's no harm in doing other good deeds on their behalf, may Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la accept them all. And the second thing that I would say
is avoid ritualizing those deeds. This is where it starts to fall out of difference of opinion to just blameworthy, where a person starts to say, after three days we'll do this, after 10 days this, 40 days, one year we'll gather here, bringing in the food, the parties. When we overly ritualize these things, then you come out of difference of opinion, you go into the blameworthy. So I'm gonna repeat the five things inshallah ta'ala once again, debts to people, debts to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, and then deeds that are inspired by that person, or an extension of that person, and then deeds that are specified in the sunnah, and then lastly, all good deeds, bi-idhnillahi ta'ala, may Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la accept them all on behalf of that person that has passed away.
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