Mustafa Khattab – Next Life 10 How To Write Your Wasiyah
AI: Summary ©
The importance of fulfilling Islam's will to save lives is discussed, including the need for individuals to be prepared to handle unexpected events like death. The legal process for citizenship after a death is also discussed, including praying for deceased family members and paying debts. The importance of praying for a deceased relative and being a mith is emphasized, as it is a must for Islamists. The speaker advises individuals to use various methods to reach out to their family members and friends, including calling, emailing, keeping their name and address, and keeping their phone number and name. The state will be distributable based on sharia, and the state will be distributable based on sharia.
AI: Summary ©
So inshallah we'll continue our discussion about the
next life
and so on and so forth.
And, today inshallah we'll talk about
something related to,
to death and the next life.
Because we mentioned in the previous harakal that
you never know when your time will come,
so,
you don't give a chance.
So we are reading all the time, we
make tawbah,
we fulfill our obligations to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala and to people because we know in
Islam,
Islam stands on 2 feet, your relationship with
Allah, and the second one is your relationship
with the people. So make sure you fulfill
both.
And one of the things that a person
needs to do is to leave a wasayi,
the Islamic will and testament. So we're going
to go through this very quick today insha
Allah. I'm going to show you the actual,
we'll see, and it's very simple. It takes
about 5 minutes to do.
And sometimes, subhanAllah, some people
pass away,
suddenly, it happens, sudden death, and a person
will die, and things will happen, and problems
will happen to the family and their kids,
and and sometimes problems happen.
So to save you all this, hassle, inshallah,
we can talk for about 10, 15 minutes
on the how to prepare your last will
and testament, and how to make it binding
and acceptable Islamically,
and,
by law it will also be binding.
So before we talk about what you need
to put in the Wasiyyah,
I'm gonna give a short introduction about the
Wasiyyah, and why it is important in Islam.
We know that the wasiya exists in other
faiths and in other cultures. Yeah. And I
had to in North America, there is the
wasiya
from a legal perspective. So some people leave
a wasiya behind,
and,
while we're working on the clear Quran translation,
one of the brothers we're helping, mashaAllah, he's
a revert, he has been Muslim for about
10 years,
and,
we were translating the ayatul Surah Nisa, and
he got very emotional and I said, Okay,
well what's wrong?
He said that his grandparents
have a lot of land, a lot of
land in Alberta and other places.
And he said that his father is not
getting anything from this, nothing.
So I said okay, why is that? He
said because they don't go by the rules
of Sharia, they just go by desire. So
my grandfather
decided to give all the land to 1
or 2 of his children,
and to deprive the rest. He is not
giving them anything.
Right? Buy Usiyyah. He wrote his will, and
this is what he put in the Usiyyah.
He gave all his money, all his land
to 1 or 2 of his children.
The rest are not getting anything.
And he got very emotional because I wish
that he or my grandparents were going by
sharia because we would have received something. Because
now we don't have anything,
and all the money we're talking about 1,000,000
of dollars are going to 1 or 2
people in the family, the rest are not
getting anything. And he said, This is not
fair. Sharia is fair.
This is the brother.
So because he put something like this in
the wasi'ah, everyone else didn't get anything. And
in some cases,
some people, we heard stories,
they have a family,
but you know what happens after 18 years
of age, the kids move out, they go
to school, or they start work, or they
move somewhere else. I'm not talking about Muslims,
but,
in the broader community. So the kids will
move out, they go to another state, or
they travel somewhere else, and they never call
you.
And some people, subhanAllah,
they die,
and they die out of their chair, and
they are dead for about 2 weeks, 3
weeks, a month, and no one knows because
no one is checking on them.
And because these people, they suffer from loneliness,
no one is asking about them, so they
decide at the end of their life, you
know what, my money, my apartment,
my car, my lamp will all go to
my dog or my cat.
We see stories. Right? So they decide to
give it to their cat or their dog,
or to a dog charity or or something
like this.
The stories are so many.
Ta'an, the biggest problem we face is sudden
death.
As I said in the chutta today,
unless you are a native Indian from the
First Nation, you are an immigrant.
Some of us come with their families, and
some come by themselves. A lot of youth,
they come here to study or to work,
they go to Edmonton, Fort Mac, they don't
have a family, and no one knows their
family.
And subhanAllah sometimes accidents happen, you know their
roads are slippery and
people have heart attacks and sudden deaths happen,
and they are very common. And I've seen
many youth,
pass away.
And the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said,
This is one of the signs of the
Day of Judgment. That, Mautul Fujah at the
sudden death will be very common.
People will die all the time in young
age unexpectedly.
And I've seen all of us in so
many cases. 18 years old, 22 years old,
no medical conditions, nothing.
They try to wake them up in the
morning, nothing. Falas, gone.
So what happens now, if someone dies,
and we don't know their family, and they
have been here for 5, 7 years,
they put money in the bank account, they
have lots of money, or whatever, no one
to take their money, and the money would
be taken over by the government because no
one here to take the money. In one
case, one brother,
from an African country was in Edmonton. He
got into an accident and he died.
For 3 weeks, they were looking for someone
in the community
who knew the brother, no one cared for,
and they kept him in the fridge.
So of course when he passed away, they
took him after the they did an autopsy
of the body, they took him to the
hospital, then they brought him to the masjid
for salatul jannahazah. We prayed jannahazah for him,
but no one to take him. And we
couldn't bury the body without the approval of
the family. Someone has to be there to
take care of the janaza.
So they kept him in the fridge for
3 weeks
until someone came forward and he said, well,
I remember,
someone who is related to this brother in
another country, and the guy from the country
will connect us with his family in Africa
after 3 weeks. So things like this happen.
And sometimes a person will die,
like
I heard at least 2 cases
in Edmondson, a brother and his wife, they
were driving together,
and they got into an accident, and they
have 4 or 5 kids in the in
the car with them. Everyone was killed in
the accident, in the crash, except for their
youngest kid, 2 years old.
Who is going to take care of that
kid?
Of course, it goes without saying the kid
will be put up for adoption.
If someone comes forward from the family and
they go through the legal channels, eventually they
will take the baby. Maybe after 2 years,
3 years, but who's gonna raise the baby?
Could be a Muslim family or a non
Muslim family, who knows? But if no one
comes forward, the kid is gone forever. Khalas.
Khalas. It's gone. It's finished.
Or if the parents pass away and all
the kids are left behind, who is gonna
take care of them? So this is something
you need to put in your ulsuyih that
in case I pass away, my spouse will
take care.
And if both of us die at the
same time, then you appoint someone to take
care of your kids, and your state, and
and your wealth, and to make sure that
your family back home will receive
will receive the money. In some
cases, some of our brothers, they come to
this country and they know that the easiest
way to get citizenship is to marry someone
from him.
So they are not very particular,
they are not very picky on who they
marry, so they end up marrying anyone.
And in some cases, they married a non
Muslim. I'm not saying this is wrong because
Islamically, technically, you can marry a Christian or
a Jew. This is the extent of Islamic.
Nothing wrong.
But
if you die,
like in an accident or something happens and
you die, you didn't leave a well behind,
your namblazon wife, she doesn't know how to
do things Islamically, or in a way that
is acceptable Islamically.
Like there was a particular case, a brother,
I think it was in New York, many
years ago, he passed away,
and suddenly
his wife decided to cremate the body.
They took the body, they burned the body,
Muslim. And his family, some of his family
members were there, and they protested, and they
took it to court.
And of course, sure enough, the judge ruled
in favor of the wife.
Because if you don't leave a waziyah, the
wife will be in charge. Right?
So the brother was burnt.
Right? Although his family was protesting protesting and
the Muslim community was protesting, but the wife
had the upper hand. Khalas finished.
You live, you live a good life, mashAllah,
respectable, honorable, and when you die,
you become barbecue. Because you didn't leave, I
will say it. One brother,
Edmonton,
he is in his seventies now, 75.
That was like 3 years ago when I
was still in Edmonton.
He came to me one day and he
said, You know what, Sheikh? After I gave
akhutba Baqal Tasih, and he said that he
knew a brother
in Edmonton
who passed away like 30 years ago, and
he was married to a non Muslim. So
after he passed away there was no masjid,
nothing in one of the places in Edmonton
in, in Alberta.
So they took him to the church,
Al Khuri, the priest, he, said a prayer,
and they took him to the graveyard, non
Muslim graveyard, and they buried him. No Muslim
prayed janazah for the brother. He was young,
a youth,
20, 25,
he got married, he didn't know nothing.
And Khalas, when he passed away, no family
members, nothing, so they took him to the
church and they prayed for him, and they
did a a non Muslim Janazah for him.
So I asked him, did anyone ever pray
Janazah for him? He said no.
So I said, Islamically,
it's a farr it's a must on those
who know now, like myself and the jama'ahir,
to pray Janazah for him. And we actually
pray jama'ah for him, 1 Jum'ah,
after 30 years. And this is acceptable islogically.
If you know for sure that someone died,
no janazah done for them, you should make
janazah for them and we made dua for
him 30 years later. Because there was no
wasayyah, nothing.
So to protect yourself from all that stuff,
you need to do your wasayyah and it
is very simple.
And in the Quran, qutiba'alaikum
idhahadakumul
mawtu in taraqahayralewawaseer.
Surah Baqarah Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says that
it is an obligation on you.
If it is a bad time for someone
of you to die and they leave something
of value,
then they should leave a waseer. And the
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said the same
thing in an authentic hadith,
and Rasool Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam alaqar.
It is not proper for a Muslim
who has something of value
to stay for a night or 2 without
having the waziyah written with them.
So if someone has something of value, a
house, a car, land, money, you need to
put this in the waziyah. So what do
we do in the waziyah? Very quickly,
you can get the Waseeh form.
So I put together this Waseeh form. You
can go to, our website here, anatuliasilter.ca,
and you go to
I'll try to make it a little bit
bigger.
Yeah. So this is our website.
You go here to resources
and media
and go to downloadable resources,
and here insha'Allah
you will find the Wasiyih Arabic and the
Wasiyih English.
To make it binding, all you need to
do is just to sign it and to
get get 2 witnesses to sign. This will
make it binding legally and Islamically,
except in one case. If someone in the
family protested
and they took the rest of the family
to court, then there would there would be
a problem.
And to stop this from happening, if you
think someone in the family would protest, you
need to go to a lawyer to make
it binding by law.
They will,
verify and certify, and they do the legal
stuff to make it binding even if someone
protested in the family.
So the will say, basically, in the will
say, yeah, you would put your name, your
address, and some information about yourself. And,
on the website, I put it in a
word file,
a
soft copy.
It's generic, basically, which means you can make
all the changes you want as long as
it's acceptable Islamically.
Yeah. I mean, say for example, if you
put in the
that, someone who is not inheriting, someone from
outside the family, you give them half of
your wealth.
This is not acceptable because you can't give
them up to 1 third. But if you
go more than
1 third, Islamically, the will be applied up
to 1 third, the rest will be given
to the family. If you even if you
make a mistake in the we will correct
the Islamically.
So you can make one for yourself,
one for your wife, or both of you
at the same time, you can be together
on the same So
then you put the rest of the family
you like, your mother, your dad,
your children,
and so on and so forth. In the
preamble some people put like an introduction,
and in this introduction you say, well I'm
a Muslim, I believe in this and this,
I believe in Allah, tawhid, the day of
judgment, and so on and so forth.
And, you mentioned, for example, if I pass
away, who's gonna leave my janazah?
I want my body to be,
dealt with in this way,
the husl. I don't want embalment or, cremation
because sometimes they remove the the blood from
the body,
embalment, and they do cremation in some cases.
And and everyone knows they do the cremation,
they say it's, environment friendly, but they do
it mostly for economic reasons, because it's it's
very cheap to cremate someone. So you say
that, I want my body to be
dealt with in an Islamic way.
If the body is going to be buried
in Canada, no problem. But if they're going
to ship the body to Pakistan, to Egypt,
to Somalia,
I think they do embalment. Before they put
it in the airplane, they have to remove
the blood for health reasons.
So this is something we cannot stop if
the body is being shipped outside, wallah'l, because
these are the rules in Canada.
Then you talk about the funeral, who's gonna
lead your janaza, who's gonna do the hushl,
and so on and so forth. Very basic
things.
Then you will talk about the executor or
the guardian, you will appoint someone,
a friend of yours,
your spouse, your brother, a family member, and
you can put a substitute. In case this
person is not there, or he or she
is traveling, or passed away, then you can
put 1 or 2 people to replace them
if they cannot be found.
And make sure you also put,
if I don't have family members in Canada,
these people should be contacted. You put 3,
for example, contact,
persons, or you can put more.
Call my family in Somalia, in Egypt, in
Pakistan.
Call my brother. Call my father. Put their
names and their addresses and phone numbers or
email, a way of reaching out to them.
And before I forget, make 2, 3 copies.
1, keep with you, 1, keep here with
me in the masjid as, it will be
confidential, and 1, you will leave to the
person who will be the executioner, your friend,
family member who will,
take care of the hosiyah after the passing
after your passing.
Of course,
in the wusiyeh,
before the distribution of the money, will be
done in 3 minutes inshallah.
Before the distribution of your money or your
state, some things have to be taken out
from the wusiyeh, sorry, from from your state
or your money.
Your debts have to be paid.
Your wussi, if you say, I make a
pledge to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that when
I die, some money up to 1 third
would be given to
an Islamic school, or a masjid, or to
build a well, or to take care of
orphans, something like this, up to 1 third.
Also,
if you still owe the mama, the dowry
for your wife, this is something that needs
to be taken out before the distribution
of the inheritance.
Because the mama that you owe to your
wife after the consummation of marriage, the mama
becomes an obligation. It's a debt on you.
It should be paid anytime when you have
the ability. But some people delay
it, and that's that's okay. That's acceptable. The
wife has the right to, waive some of
the amount or the whole of it. But
if the person passes away
before they pay the amount, it needs to
be taken out of their, inheritance
before they start distributing the inheritance among the
heirs, including the wife, and kids, and the
parents if they are still alive.
And of course the janazah expenses will be
taken out.
Also, what you need to put there,
if you owe some money to someone or
someone owes money to you.
Like in some cases, some of us, we
we have businesses.
And some people, they take stuff from you,
and they didn't pay, they owe you money.
So you need to put here that this
person owes me this amount, and it is
due on this time. And you will do
the same thing for the people that you
owe money to. Like you took something or
some money from someone and you need to
give it back, then you need to put
here that I owe money to this brother
or this sister. It is due on this
date, and so on and so forth.
You can also leave the state,
the money you have. Because in some cases,
we have some bank accounts, we have money,
we have gold, we have certain things that
no one knows about. You need to put
this in your so
people know where your money is. Like if
you have a bank account and no one
knows about it, if you pass away, the
money will be gone because they don't have
a way of contacting you, especially if you
don't have a family member here.
Then you list
all the donations you want to give up
to 1 third, and any articles you want
to include. You you can also put that
if something happens to me, what will happen
to my kids, and so on and so
forth.
And,
eventually,
you'll say that your estate,
your wealth will be divided based on sharia.
Don't go through the details and say that
my wife will take 1 eighth, my mother
will take 1 seikh, my kids will take
this, and this will take that. Why? Because
things happen all the time. And if one
person passes away in the family before you,
everything will be missed up.
So you will the, inheritance will be redistributed.
And subhanAllah, in the rules of fiqh, we're
studying in fiqh of Imam Abu Hanifa, other
madhats.
If 2 people are in the car together,
and they got into an accident,
there was and they died, both of them.
And but one of them died before the
other, like 1 minute of a difference.
So one one of them passed away 1
minute before the other, so the second one
will inherit the the one who passed first.
Although both of them passed away,
but the state will be distributed based on
that. The person who died second will take
his or her share from the person who
died first, then eventually,
they will redistribute
it based on the person who died second.
It's it's very complicated.
So don't make a distribution
now. Just put this one clause, and I
actually put it here that my state will
be distributed according to sharia, then you'll put
you'll sign your name, signature,
and you'll get 2 witnesses,
and and khalas. You put the date and
khalas. And you can keep it here in
this masjid. There's a small fee. I think
it's about $100.
And if you ever decide to make any
changes in the future, you don't have to
pay anything again. It's a it's a one
time fee.
But again, this is something that, you need
to do insha'Allah. And if you don't want
to keep it in the masir, again, you
can keep one copy with you, one with
your friend and khalas,
this will take care of it. We ask
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to protect you and
your families
and give you barakah and a long and
healthy life, Ameen, Ameen. Any questions about Usayyah?
Anything anything on plain paper, does that stand
in a court of law, or you have
to notarize it or get it stamped? You
don't have to notarize it even if it's
handwritten,
it's binding, it's acceptable by Allah and Sharia
as long as you sign, you put the
date, and you have to witness this. The
only problem is if someone in the family
protested and they said, well I don't accept
this, This is fake. Whatever. Then it will
go to the court.
But if you want to make it fully
binding, even if someone protested in the family,
take it to a lawyer. Give them a
$100, $200,
and they will make it binding by law.
So it means it does not if someone
does not protest in your family, then it
will be acceptable in the court. Of course.
Yes. We had a meeting with the Council
of Imams, and this is the highest Muslim
authority, at least in the GTA.
So they agreed, and they sat with lawyers,
and they told them as long as you
sign and you have 2 witnesses
and you date it,
no one protested. It is binding by law
and by Islam. Sharia legally acceptable.
Law. Just to make a point. The 2
witnesses
have to
be present at the same time
in front of
the the the author of
the. Yes. You can't have one witness to
me today and then just have the other
person sign it. Because you're gonna date it.
It's better if you get them together and
the sign of the Khalas. And you explain
to them that this is my will say,
yeah. If something happens, make sure that, you
know, you go by by my will say.
It's it's very simple. If you try to
fill out the form, it's gonna take about
5 minutes.
It's it's not big as you can see.
Very simple.
Unless Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gave you a
lot of family members and a lot of
money,
then you need to list everything.
And the witnesses do not need to be
the relative,
and the Not necessarily. Any 2 Muslims inshallah
can witness.
Be able to find them like it was
something in the Yeah. You can find 2
witnesses inshallah. It's not a big deal.
Or family members. It's not a problem.
Do we actually have, do we actually have
to do this, or we,
if we just, want to do it, then
we do it? Do we just have to
do it? Well, I think
it's based on all the situations I have
seen and all the terrible stories I heard,
I think
we should do it to make life easier
for our heirs and and everyone else in
the family.
Because again, no one knows what time they
will go.
And things happen unexpectedly
and and khalas.
So,
make sure you make it insha'Allah.
It's worth doing it. Just 5, maximum 10
minutes, you put your heart at ease,
now you know that if you go anytime,
everything is taken care of. Your money is
listed, your debts are listed,
your family members are listed, your estate is
listed, khas.
Allah, yisba. Who could be the executor?
You can't choose anyone. The imam, your friend,
your brother, any Muslim, or anyone who is
reliable.
You can take care of this, inshallah.
By writing this, you're actually making it easy
for the people
who will take care of your bank accounts
and, everything after you. Because once you're once
you're gone, anytime you go to the bank
or anywhere, they're gonna say, who are you?
Show us proof.
You have to have something.
I did my wasayah, I keep a copy
here in the masjid, and I listed,
my bank account number,
and I put, for example, my wife as,
you know, she's gonna take care of the
kids if something happens, and so on and
so forth.
So,
you make it easy for your family, because
if something happens they know your accounts, and
your bank number, and the name of the
bank, things like this.
Or you can do both together. Oh. You
can do both. Again, I left a soft
copy on the website,
in our website under resources,
and it's, in a Word file.
So you can download it, and it's,
generic. You can make all the changes you
want. Insha'Allah.
One question.