Advice for the Muslim

ta’âlâ ’anh) as saying, “What the dead reveal is all true, because
the dead are in a world where there is no lie or mistake. The
people of that world always tell the truth. Our observations and
comprehension affirm these words of ours.” Ibn al-Qayyim and
others said so, too. Because the soul is latîf [etheral], it
comprehends the events which cannot be perceived through the
sense organs. Hâkim [Muhammad an-Nishâpûrî, d. 405 A.H.
(1014)] and al-Baihakî, in his book Dala’il, narrate that Sulaimân
[ibn Yasâr, ex-slave freed by Maimûna (radî-Allâhu ta’âlâ ’anh), d.
107 A.H. (726)] went once to Hadrat Umm Salama, who was then
weeping, and asked why she was weeping. She said, “I dreamt of
Rasûlullâh (sall-Allâhu ta’âlâ ’alaihi wa sallam). He was weeping.
There was soil on his blessed head and beard. I asked, ‘Why is your
blessed face so?’ ‘I saw my [grand] son Husain get martyred,’ he
said.” [Walî ad-dîn Muhammad] Al-Khatîb at-Tabrîzî [ash-Shâfi’î,
d. 749 A.H. (1347)], too, quotes this in his book Mishkât al-
Masâbîh. Ibn Abi ’d-dunyâ (rahmat-Allâhi ta’âlâ ’alaih) reports a
grave-digger of the Banî Asad tribe as saying, “I was in the
graveyard one night. A voice from a grave called, ‘Oh ’Abdullâh!’
Another replied, ‘What do you want, oh Jâbir?’ The first one said,
‘Our brother will come to us tomorrow.’ ‘He will not be of any use
to us. People will not pray for us [after he is buried beside us]. My
father is angry with him and had sworn not to pray for him,’
answered the other. The next morning a man came and told me to
dig a grave in between the two graves. He was pointing at those
two graves from which I heard the conversation the night before.
‘What are the names of the persons in these graves?’ I asked. ‘This
is Jâbir and that is ’Abdullâh,’ he pointed out. I told him what I
heard that night. ‘Yes, it is true that I swore not to pray for him.
But now I will break my oath and pray, but expiate (kaffâra) for
it,’ he said.”
PART SEVEN. It is written in reliable books that, by Allâhu
ta’âlâ’s permission, the dead do work, and many things are
witnessed from them. Hadîth scholar al-Imâm as-Suyûtî, in his
book Al-mutaqaddim, and hâfiz [Ahmad] Ibn Hajar [al-Askalânî,
d. Egypt, 852 A.H. (1448)], in his fatwâs, say, “The souls of
believers are at the maqâm (stage, place) named ’Illiyyîn, and
those of disbelievers are in the place called Sijjîn. Every soul is
bound to his body in an unknown way. This attachment is not like
the relations in this world. This relation is like that of a person and
what he sees in his dream. But the attachment of the dead to their
bodies and to other things is much stronger than that of living
– 155 –