Seadet-i Ebediyye - Endless Bliss Fifth Fascicle

ecome fâsiq Muslims. Anyone who doesn’t accept these services
as a duty and underestimates their value, loses his belief and
becomes a murtadd.] It is permissible for a child also to wash a
corpse. A disbeliever’s corpse is not washed. It is wrapped in a
piece of cloth and buried.
When there are no women, a man cannot wash the corpse of a
woman. But, after the corpse is covered from head to foot, a
relative of hers or, if she has no relatives, someone else wraps a
piece of cloth around his hand, puts his hand under the cover, and
makes tayammum on the corpse. For, a dead person’s awrat part
is the same as a living person’s. Those parts of the body that are
forbidden for others to look at are also forbidden for them to
touch. A better way would be to teach a child and have it wash the
corpse.
The bench for washing the corpse must be as high as (an
average person’s) navel and must be somewhat sloping. The water
must not be very hot and must be salty. Cool and salty water
retards rotting. Even if the corpse is a child’s, it is first given an
ablution. But, instead of putting water into its mouth and nose,
they are cleaned with a piece of cloth. If water escapes into its
mouth it will accelerate the rotting process. First its face is washed.
Then its arms are washed, its ears and the back of its neck are
given masah, and its feet are washed. Its head and beard are
washed with marsh-mallow or soap and with water which is boiled
with cedar leaves or soapwort and then cooled or mixed with a
whitish, aromatic substance called camphor or, if these are
unavailable, only with pure water. Then it is turned and made to
lie on its left and water is poured on its right hand side. The water
must be made to reach even those parts touching the washing
bench. Then it is made to lie on its right and water is poured on its
left from head to foot. Then it is made to sit up and the abdomen
is slightly pressed down. Anything coming out is washed away.
[That is, it is removed by pouring water.] Then it is made to lie on
its left and its right hand side is washed again, [that is, water is
poured from head to foot.] Thus, as prescribed by the sunna, it will
have been washed three times. As each side is washed, water is
poured three times.
If an ill person dies in a state of junub, he is still washed once. If
anything breaking ablution comes out after the washing he is not
washed or given an ablution again. But the things coming out are
washed away by pouring water. It is sunna to make niyya (intention)
when washing the corpse. Without a niyya the dead person still
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