Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – What to Do When a Person is Dying

There's a question that's coming up quite frequently today,

especially with regards to the Coronavirus and people having many

sick people in the house and having

people die, right either in their presence or at the hospital, and

so on. And subhanAllah This has always been the case that there's

been a lot of ignorance as to what is the end of life care that

individuals have to provide for their family members. For example,

our books of jurisprudence and others, they provide this detail.

And I remember there was a basic book that they teach in the teach

to children. They've been teaching for a very long time, it's called

tidy Mohawk. So I taught this book to my class of students in America

when I was there. And

one of the guys he was probably about nine or 10, when he studied

it, or maybe 10 or 11. And then after that, he was about 15, or

16. And his grandfather was on his deathbed, the rest of his family

are in panic, they don't know what to do. Like they don't know what

the rest of the family is responsibilities are towards the

deceased, or towards the person who's seemingly in the last throes

of life. What is the religious requirements? What are other

practical such as nobody knows, because you don't see this every

day? Right? You don't see this every day. So I've been told by a

number of the brothers who are doing the washing, who are

basically preparing the body for burial nowadays, in this

Coronavirus time, that they found that when they receive bodies

Subhanallah they in various forms of rigor mortis, you call that?

Because after a body dies, it freezes. Right, it gets set in a

certain position. That's why we're told on a practical level to do

certain things. So the idea is that there's certain things that

you read, and you try to get the patient to read the the, we call

these people matado. Right, the people who are basically about to

go into the presence of Allah subhanaw taala from here and leave

this world. So

there are certain things that please try to keep in mind this is

very, very important that if you have somebody that is dying in

front of you, then these are your responsibilities. And these are

the things that you must do. So I'm going to read too quickly from

this book that we produced a few years ago written by Dr. Sharon

Islamiat. Shutter Hussein, it's a beautiful book, what the living

can do for the dead from white thread press basically says what

to do when the signs of death become apparent. When the signs of

death manifest on a person, it is encouraged, and not necessarily

not necessary to lay the person on the right side with the limb

straightened and facing the Qibla.

The Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi salam instructed

regarding the carrabba, it is your Qibla alive or dead. So even for

the person who is about to die, should face him towards the Qibla.

Now it's important that those who are present tried to provide as

much comfort as they can to the dying, you don't want to be

talking about inheritance issues when they're about to die, maybe

before that, to try to make them write a will or to sort out

unresolved matters, that's a good idea, but not at the time of

death. That's a that's a very sensitive time. Right now, a few

things that you do at that time. One of the biggest things is still

keen. This is before that if you do Tolkien, Tolkien means that

you're trying to encourage the dying person to recite the Kadima,

the formula of faith that ilaha IL Allah. And you do that slowly, and

you don't tell them please recite this, or recite this, come on

quickly recite it, you actually start reading it, and hopefully

they listen to it. It basically reminds them, and then they read

it, once they really wants them Be quiet. Because you don't under

don't speak to them about anything else, because you don't want

another word to be uttered after that. So that's the first thing

that you do. That's why the Prophet saw some said in a hadith

of sahih, Muslim instruct the dying to say La ilaha illAllah.

Because it will eliminate previous sins, to die on a good note to die

on the name of Allah that you came into the world with when the other

one was called into your ear. Here the responsibility is ours. Number

two,

you can recite some Quran

around them, and just softly that's a good idea. Now in terms

of the practical aspects, when the inevitable appointed time has

arrived, and the soul has left is leaving the body. So you've

already faced them, preferably on the right side towards the Qibla.

Sometimes you may not be able to move them like that. So then you

do the best that you can. The people present and especially the

heirs, they should first you should speak well of the deceased

as far as possible. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said

that the angels they pronounced Amin upon what the family of the

deceased

You say this is a Hadith of Muslim Muhammad. So if you are going to

speak then speak well, the angels will make it it's like a dua than

an angel is inshallah will say, I mean as well. Then after that

these are the practical things which some of the, our brothers

and sisters preparing the disease will tell I've told us about to

basically let people know, you close the eyes of the disease, so

you shut the eyes, generally, they may stay left open looking up. So

you want to close the eyes calmly after they passed away and close

the eyes so that they become closed, you don't want to leave

them staring, because otherwise that's how they generally remain.

And you say Bismillah, where Allah military Rasul Allah, which

basically means the name of Allah and upon the religion of Allah's

Messenger, sallallahu alayhi salam number to close the jaws. And in

fact, if you have to tie a small string, from the bottom of the

jaw, to the top of the head, so that the jaw remains closed, lots

of people observing that people who don't know the family members

who don't know this, they, they they then the rigor mortis sets in

and they become frozen with their jaws open, it's not a very good

sight, we want to respect and honor our disease like that. So

close the jaw. As I said, you can use a bandage, if necessary.

Number three, straighten the limbs, straighten the limbs, as

soon as they passed away, then straighten the limbs, put the feet

together the legs together, and try to keep it as straight as

possible. And

if you have to tie the feet together, you could even do that

I'm not sure if that's necessary or not. But because sometimes what

they're saying is that we're receiving bodies, and the the two

legs are just spread apart. And it's very, they will put them

together because it's become very stiff afterwards.

Allahu Akbar. Number four, remove any jewelry,

right or any excess like that. Because when they come in for the

bathing and so on, it becomes quite complicated, it's better

that you can remove them. In fact, if you can, before nowadays, with

people dying in hospitals very easily, because of what's going

on, try to get the all that removed before you even go to

before you'll send your loved ones to the hospital. Because you have

to be sensitive because you don't want them to feel like you're

sending them to their death, and that you want their, their jewelry

or whatever. So that's a bit sensitive, but definitely

afterwards, try to try to remove that.

And if there's a possibility of the stomach bloating, then you can

actually play something heavy with some weight on the stomach so that

it does not bloat, you basically don't want the body to become

deformed. Very important. And if we can provide this information,

if you can write this information down, maybe we will try to do is

we'll if you if you don't have a copy of this book, then maybe

we'll try to put this instruction on the website, you will find it

on zum zum academy.com. And you can basically copy it out and

giving giving give it to the doctors at the hospital or the

nurses at the hospital that please try to do these things. I mean

they may if there's not Muslim then they may not say La Ilaha

illa Allah to them or whatever but at least they will have they can

do the other things as far as possible. And then after that, you

know you obviously make dua but these are some of the main things

just to remember when it comes to our deceased