The ḥadīth of Maʿqil ibn Yasār which contains the instruction to read Sūrah Yāsīn in the presence of a dying person is documented in Musnad Aḥmad (vol. 5 p. 26), Sunan Abī Dāwūd (no. 3121) and Sunan Ibn Mājah (no.1448) and a number of other sources. This ḥadīth does not fulfil the requirements of authenticity—a fact that has led to a rejection of the practice in some quarters.
However, a distinction should be made between the basic acceptability, and even recommendability of the practice, and the elevation thereof to the level of a prophetic sunnah. While authentic evidence is admittedly required for declaring a practice to be based directly upon the instruction or example of the Nabī ṣallaLlāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam, the same does not hold for the lesser claim that a practice is recommendable or acceptable.
Imām Aḥmad, for instance, has documented a narration that recalls the last moments of Ghudayf ibn al-Ḥārith (who was a Ṣaḥābī in the opinion of most scholars). Upon his deathbed he asked if there was anyone who could read Sūrah Yāsīn. The sūrah was then read and upon the completion of forty verses his soul left his body. The narrator of the incident, Ṣafwān ibn ʿAmr, then remarks that the elders used to say that when Yāsīn is read in the presence of a dying person it lessens the intensity of the throes of death upon him. Since Ṣafwān himself belongs to the younger generation of the Tābiʿīn, the “elders” whom he refers to have to belong to the elder generations of the Tābiʿīn, or possibly even the Ṣaḥābah raḍiyaLlahu ʿanhum.
The chain of narration through which this narration has come down to Imām Aḥmad has been authenticated by Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar. While it does not contain a direct ascription of the instruction to recite Sūrah Yāsīn to the Nabī ṣallaLlāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam, there does exist the possibility that what Ghudayf ibn al-Ḥārith requested on his death-bed actually has its roots in the Sunnah of the Nabī ṣallaLlāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam. However, even when we discard this possibility, the basic acceptability of this practice stands unaffected by the lack of authentic evidence to support its being sunnah. If it was found to be effective in bringing ease to the dying person by the early generations of Islam, then its recommendability extends to all successive generations, not as a matter of prophetic precedent, but on the basis of the simple rule that whatever is beneficial is desirable. All that remains objectionable is to regard this practice as based directly upon an instruction or example of RasūluLlah ṣallaLlāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam.
But even in this regard the door is not completely closed. It is a well-established (though not universally agreed upon) principle that weak aḥādīth may be used in matters of faḍāʾil—supererogatory matters from which issues of ʿaqīdah, ḥalāl and ḥarām are excluded. The majority of the ʿulamāʾ hold the view that practices may be based upon weak aḥādīth when the following four conditions are met:
- the defect in authenticity should not be serious;
- the matter should not pertain to ʿaqīdah, ḥalāl or ḥarām;
- the matter should fall under an accepted principle in Sharīʿah;
- when doing the deed one should not have the conviction that it is in fact a sunnah, but rather that there is the possibility of it being a sunnah.
The first three conditions are already met in the ḥadīth of reading Sūrah Yāsīn in the presence of the dying person. The last condition pertains to the impression with which one executes the deed. As long as one does not firmly believe the matter to be an established sunnah, and acts according to the ḥadīth on the basis of the possibility that it might in fact be a sunnah, there would be no harm, according to the majority of the ʿulamāʾ, in following this practice. Scholars who deny the practice expectably belong to the camp that does not subscribe to this principle.
In summary, the recitation of Sūrah Yāsīn in the presence of the dying person is based upon either:
- a slightly defective ḥadīth,
- or the experience of the early generations of Islam.
In the case of a slightly defective ḥadīth, the ḥadīth may still be taken as the basis of one’s practice, provided one does not look upon the deed as an established sunnah, but practices it merely as a possible sunnah.
In the latter case a claim of the practice as a prophetic sunnah is decidedly untenable, but this does not affect the basic acceptability, and even recommendability of the practice.
Turning a dying Muslim towards the qiblah
The practice of turning a dying person towards the qiblah is based upon a ḥadīth that recounts the death of al-Barāʾ ibn Maʿrūr raḍiyaLlāhu ʿanhu. This Ṣaḥābī was the first of the Anṣār to swear allegiance to RasūluLlah ṣallaLlāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam at ʿAqabah, before the Hijrah. He passed away one month before RasūluLlah ṣallaLlāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam reached Madīnah. Upon his deathbed he instructed his children to turn him towards the qiblah. RasūluLlah ṣallaLlāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam, upon learning of this, approved of this act, and declared that al-Barāʾ ibn Maʿrūr had indeed acted upon the fitrah (the natural and instinctive disposition to truth).
This ḥadīth was documented as well as authenticated by al-Ḥākim al-Naysaburi in his collection al-Mustadrak (vol. 4 p. 259). His authentication of the ḥadīth was corroborated by al-Dhahabī. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalani found no reason dispute the authenticity of the ḥadīth, and later scholars such as al-Shawkānī and al-Ṣanʿānī followed in his footsteps.
However, the late Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī disputed its authenticity. In his Aḥkām al-Janāʾiz he briefly states that there exists no authentic ḥadīth on the issue, while in his lengthier Irwāʾ al-Ghalīl (ḥadīth no. 689, vol. 3 p. 152-153) he elaborates the factors on the basis of which he disputes the authenticity of the ḥadīth. The major reason is the fact that the chain of narration is mursal, meaning that it is narrated by a Tābiʿī directly from RasūluLlah ṣallaLlāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam, without mention of the source through whom the information was passed down to the Tābiʿī. At the end of his discussion al-Albānī does make mention of an alternative narration documented by al-Bayhaqī in al-Sunan al-Kubrā (vol. 3 p. 384). This narration is declared by al-Bayhaqī to be a sound mursal report. Al-Albānī does not dispute this fact.
At this point it should be noted that mursal narrations are generally regarded as acceptable evidence in the Ḥanafī, Mālikī and Ḥanbalī schools, while the Shāfiʿīs require any of a number of additional criteria (in the present case, the alternative narration of al-Bayhaqī) for accepting the ḥadīth. Thus, within the theoretical framework of all four madhāhib there ought to be no reluctance to accept and practice upon this ḥadīth. If there happen to be other scholars whose restrictive theoretical approach to mursal narrations leads them to reject the ḥadīth altogether, then it must be understood that theirs is but a relative position, and not an absolute one. It is only against the backdrop of their specific principles that the denial of the ḥadīth’s authenticity is feasible. To the four major madhāhib the ḥadīth is acceptable.
Broader research into the authenticity of the ḥadīth reveals that it ought to be acceptable even within restricted parameters. In al-Iṣābah (vol. 1 p. 149) Ibn Ḥajar has adduced a number of independent narrations that verify the ḥadīth in al-Mustadrak. One of these is taken from the Tārīkh of Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān al-Fasawī, and although its chain is the same as that of the alternative narration given by al-Bayhaqī, there is one important difference: al-Fasawī’s chain does not suffer from a mursal link. Its chain is completely uninterrupted, and the “area of concern” is thus satisfactorily accounted for.
It is quite possible that these alternative narrations escaped the notice of al-Albānī, especially the one in al-Fasawī’s Tārīkh. This book was not yet published at the time he wrote Aḥkām al-Janāʾiz and Irwāʾ al-Ghalīl. Be that as it may, in light of the above one may safely conclude that the practice of turning the dying person towards the qiblah has a reliable basis in the Sunnah.
Asking menstruating women to leave the room in which a Muslim is dying, or in which the corpse lies
I am not aware of any sharʿī reason for asking a menstruating woman to leave the room in which a person is dying or in which his dead body lies, neither in the form of textual evidence from the Qurʾān or Sunnah, nor through analogy, nor even in the statements of any of the fuqahāʾ. This practice seems to be based upon nothing but custom that is misconstrued as Sharīʿah.
The basis of this custom is probably the idea that the presence of a menstruating woman somehow has the effect of keeping out raḥmah (divine mercy) or barakah (divine blessing), or repelling the malāʾikah (angels). Raḥmah, barakah and the malāʾikah all belong to the Unseen World, and a cardinal rule with regard to the Unseen World is that claims about it may not be based upon mere logical deduction or speculation.
Furthermore, in the Sunnah we find proof that the presence of a menstruating woman does not negatively affect the spiritual purity of the atmosphere in a room or a house. RasūluLlah ṣallaLlāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam used to recite the Qurʾān whilst reclining in the lap of ʿĀʾishah raḍiyaLlahu ʿanhā during her menstruation (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, no. 297). He also used to perform ṣalāh in his room while she, in the state of menstruation slept in the same room. She was so close to him that at times his clothes used to touch her (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, 379). It was the Jews who held the idea that all social interaction with a woman had to be suspended during her menstruation, and Islam came to destroy this notion (Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, vol. 3 p. 211).