5-Endless Bliss Fifth Fascicle - Hakikat Kitabevi

elieved that the corpse has putrefied. The beginning of
putrefaction depends on the kind of earth, the season, the
weather, and on whether the corpse is fat or thin. It varies
between three days to one month (after burial).
[Such words as “The nose falls on the fortieth day,” “The
corpse begins to rot on the fifty-third night” are not true, and it is
wrong to have (the celebrated eulogy called) Mawlîd performed
(only) on these nights. They are the words of a tomb-keeper
named Ahmad, who claimed to have seen them in his dream.
Every service done for the dead is an act of worship. Worships
are learnt only from âyats, hadîths, and the words of mujtahids.
Worships cannot be changed haphazardly with the words of this
person or that or with dreams. Those who want to change or
defile worships become a kâfir (unbeliever). Such services as
reading the Qur’ân, giving alms, saying prayers that are to be
done for the dead must not be done on the fifty-third night (fiftythree
days after death); we must try to rescue them by doing
these services on the first day. Postponing these services till the
seventh, the fortieth or the fifty-third night is like saying, “Wait
for a while. I’ll come to your rescue a few days later,” to a
person who is about to drown. Hadrat Muhammad Ma’thûm
says in the eleventh letter of the first volume of his Maktûbât, “It
will be a very good and great worship to give food and alms to
the poor not customarily or for ostentation but for Allah’s sake
and to gift the thawâb to the dead person’s soul. But there is no
dependable report saying that this must be done on a certain
day or night. That is, there is no such principle.” Many a time I
have seen ads in Istanbul newspapers announcing that there
will be religious rites at a Christian cemetery for some dead
Christians on the fortieth day (of their death) and that their
acquaintances are invited. When I asked them they said that it
was their custom to help a dead person on the fortieth day of
his or her death. This shows that performing such services as
alms and mawlîd for the dead on certain days is a Christian
disease which has spread among Muslims, too].
It is harâm in the Madhhabs of Hanafî and Mâlikî to place
the corpse inside the mosque and perform the salât of janâza
there. There are some savants who say that it is not makrûh if
the corpse is outside the mosque and some of the jamâ’at are
inside it, but it is harâm to perform the salât in that manner, too.
All the jamâ’at must perform the salât outside. For, mosques
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