Wa `alaykum As-Salamu wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
Dear sister in Islam, we would like to thank you for the great confidence you place in us, and we implore Allah Almighty to help us serve His cause and render our work for His Sake.
As regards your question, we’d like to make it clear in the very beginning that it is not correct to state that no Funeral Prayer was performed for the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Everything about the Prophet’s biography and even his death are documented in authentic sources of narration. Also, some people think that Muslim women are not allowed to perform the Funeral Prayer. There is no basis for this belief. Both Muslim men and women are urged to perform Funeral Prayer for those among them who die.
In his response to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
“It is not correct to state that no Funeral Prayer was performed for the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) since it has been clearly reported otherwise in the sources of seerah (Prophet’s biography).
For instance, we read in Imam Ibn Kathir’s Al-Bidayah wa an-Nihayah that Funeral Prayer was held for the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) inside the apartment of `A’ishah, his beloved wife (may Allah be pleased with her). Remember that it is there that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) breathed his last, and it is there that he was buried. The procedure was described thus in a report by Ibn `Abbas: “When the body of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was prepared for burial by bathing and shrouding, it was placed on a bed. (Since the room was too small to accommodate the throngs of people, they entered in small groups): First groups of men entered and performed Funeral Prayer; they were followed by groups of women who likewise prayed; then children entered and prayed.”
The above report of Ibn `Abbas has also been confirmed by similar reports from other Companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him).
The reports make it abundantly clear that women did participate in the funeral of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) along with men.”
Excerpted, with slight modifications, from: www.muslims.ca
For more information, you can read:
Women Performing Funeral Prayer
