Reciting Qur'an for the dead

This article was copied from Darulfatwa, Islamic High Council of Australia:

Question- Assalamualaikum, Inshallah i would like to know the ruling with proof from the sunnah or the Quran regarding reading the Quran for the dead. Usually s ome Imams read some Quran and also remind the dead person on (who is you lord what is your book what is you faith) while the dead person is in the grave but before he is covered with soil. And also after the dead is buried they gather at the house and read the fatiha and cook food for the guest's. I have been told different opinion's and don't really know which is right. I have been told that the Prophet (Peace be upon him) did not do it so we should not do it as this is innovation (bida). Inshallah if you can clear this up for me it would help clear a lot of confusion between people. Jazzakallahu Khairan Wassalam

Your Brother in Islam

Answer:

Praise be to Allah the Lord of the worlds and may Allah raise the rank of our dear Prophet Muhammad.

Wa- `Alaykum As-Salam wa-Rahmatullahi wa-Barakatuhu.

The following shall clear up all the confusion and answer all your questions :

Firstly, regarding the reading of the Qur'an, it is a rewardable deed with the right intention and with the proper articulation of the Arabic letters, even if it were upon the Muslim dead. Imam An-Nawawiyy (d. 676 H.) said in his book Al-AdhKar: “It has been reported to us through Sunan al-Bayhaqiyy with a chain of narration classified as hasan, that Ibn `Umar regarded the recitation of the beginning of Surat Al-Baqarah and its ending upon the grave of a newly buried Muslim as a mustahab (likeable) matter”. He also said: “Ash-Shafi`iyy and his companions in his madhhab said that it is a mustahab (likeable) matter to recite some of the Qur'an upon the grave of a Muslim, and they added that if the Qur'an was recited in its entirety then that would also be a rewardable matter”.

Imam Ahmad and other scholars also relayed the same ruling. Imam Al-Qadi Abul Fadl `Iyad said something to that effect in his commentary book to Sahih Muslim when explaining the hadith of the female slave in which the Prophet, peace be upon him, said about two recently buried Muslims, after he split a moist palm branch into two and fixed the two branches over the graves: “We hope that any punishment will be eased while the branches are still moist”. Specifically, Al-Qadi `Iyad said: “Scholars deduced from this hadith that it is likeable (mustahab) to read the Qur'an upon the dead, because if punishment could be eased by the tasbih (glorifying Allah) of the branches which are objects, then given the priority of the Qur'an, its recitation upon the dead would be likeable”. This ruling was also conveyed from him and it was agreed upon by Al-Abiyy in his explanation book to Sahih Muslim. Another piece of evidence testifying to the benefiting of the dead Muslim from the Qur’anic recitation of another is the hadith narrated by Ma`qal bin Yasar in which the Prophet peace be upon him says: “Recite the verses of Surat Yasin upon your dead” (narrated by Abu Dawud, An-Nasa’iyy and Ibn Majah, who classified it as a Sahih hadith).

Quran: A Teacher to Modern Scientists

Ours is an era of space probes, computer chips, laser surgeries and cloning. If we were to label any book as a revelation from God, we couldn't help but to scrutinize this Scripture using modern scientific knowledge. It could not be that a revelation, proclaiming itself from God, could constitute aspects contradicting established scientific facts. How could we assume otherwise, when God is the one who created the universe and the laws operating within it.

The Quran was revealed 1400 years ago to the last Prophet of God, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) as a guidance for all humanity. The entire Quran has been committed to memory by millions of Muslims around the world and has been preserved by God from any interpolations, for continuing guidance. Although the Quran is a religious book with a total of about 6600 plus verses dealing with many aspects of a person's life, about 1000 of those verses are of scientific nature, none contradicting established scientific facts.

Dr. T.V.N. Persaud [1], professor of Anatomy, says: "You have an illiterate person (Prophet Muhammad) making profound statements that are amazingly accurate, of a scientific nature...I personally can't see how this could be mere chance, there are too many accuracies and like Dr. Moore, I have no difficulty in my mind reconciling that this is a divine inspiration or revelation which lead him to these statements".

Besides providing guidelines in personal, social, moral and spiritual spheres of humanity, the Quran touches upon diverse scientific topics like astronomy, geology, embryology, genetics, biology, archeology etc. Some of these are mentioned below to prove the Quran's Divine origin.

The Big Bang !

Currently, the Big Bang model of the origin of the universe is the cosmological paradigm most widely accepted by astronomers. It holds that about 15 billion years ago the universe began with the explosive expansion of a single, extremely dense matter, the primordial mass. Only after the development of radio telescopes in 1937 that, the necessary observational precision was achieved in order for astronomers to arrive at the above conclusion. What does the Quran say about our universe's origin?

"Do not the unbelievers see that the Heavens and the earth were joined together, then We split them apart." (21:30)

Expanding Universe

The Amazing Qur'an

Calling the Qur'an amazing is not something done only by Muslims, who have an appreciation for the book and who are pleased with it; it has been labeled amazing by non-Muslims as well. In fact, even people who hate Islam very much have still called it amazing.

One thing which surprises non_muslims who are examining the book very closely is that the Qur'an does not appear to them to be what they expected. What they assume is that they have an old book which came fourteen centuries ago from the Arabian desert; and they expect that the book should look something like that - an old book from the desert. And then they find out that it does not resemble what they expected at all. Additionally, one of the first things that some people assume is that because it is an old book which comes from the desert, it should talk about the desert. Well the Qur'an does talk about the desert - some of its imagery describes the desert; but it also talks about the sea - what it's like to be in a storm on the sea.

Some years ago, the story came to us in Toronto about a man who was in the merchant marine and made his living on the sea. A Muslim gave him a translation of the Qur'an to read. The merchant marine knew nothing about the history of Islam but was interested in reading the Qur'an. When he finished reading it, he brought it back to the Muslim and asked, "This Muhammed, was he a sailor?" He was impressed at how accurately the Qur'an describes a storm on a sea. 

When he was told, "No as a matter of fact, Muhammed lived in the desert," that was enough for him. He embraced Islam on the spot. He was so impressed with the Qur'an's description because he had been in a storm on the sea, and he knew that whoever had written that description had also been in a storm on the sea. The description of "a wave, over it a wave, over it clouds" was not what someone imagining a storm on a sea to be like would have written; rather, it was written by someone who knew what a storm on the sea was like. This is one example of how the Qur'an is not tied to a certain place and time. Certainly, the scientific ideas expressed in it also do not seem to originate from the desert fourteen centuries ago.

Many centuries before the onset of Muhammed's Prophethood, there was a well-known theory of atomism advanced by the Greek philosopher, Democritus. He and the people who came after him assumed that matter consists of tiny, indestructible, indivisible particles called atoms. The Arabs too, used to deal in the same concept; in fact, the Arabic word dharrah commonly referred to the smallest particle known to man. Now, modern science has discovered that this smallest unit of matter (i.e., the atom, which has all of the same properties as its element) can be split into its component parts. This is a new idea, a development of the last century; yet, interestingly enough, this information had already been documented in the Qur'an which states:

" He [i.e., Allah] is aware of an atom's weight in the heavens and on the earth and even anything smaller than that..."

Undoubtedly, fourteen centuries ago that statement would have looked unusual, even to an Arab. For him, the dharrah was the smallest thing there was. Indeed, this is proof, that the Qur'an is not outdated.