What can the living do to the rescue the dead person from punishment?

In the Name of Allah, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful

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"To Allah belongs the intercession altogether. To Him belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth:" (Surah Az-Zumar 39:44, The Holy Qur’an)

'The livings go on and the dead do not.'

A man is living in our midst. Suddenly death snatches him from us. We wail and wear black. We set up the funeral tents and so forth. In short, we do what is necessary. Then we forget him on the premise that 'The livings go on and the dead do not.' Or else we continue to remember him and abandon ourselves to our grief, living a life of constant anguish, claiming to be faithful to the dead. So our life is spent either in forgetfulness or grief. However, life is short. There is no time in it for either forgetfulness or grief. Real life does not consist of forgetfulness. Real fidelity is not to persist in grief.

Let us consider together how we can help the dead person. Who has left us. How can we support him in that severe trial? He is in fact in greater need of us than the living. He is now alone, buried in a grave inside the earth. The possibility of action is now finished for him. His subterfuges have come to an end. However, the benefit he can derive from actions which the living perform on his behalf have not come to an end, provided that Allah gives permission, since Allah said in His Mighty Book,

'Who will intercede with Him except by His permission?'  (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:255, The Holy Qur’an)

The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said,

'When a man dies, his actions cease except for three things: a sadaqa which goes on, knowledge which continues to benefit people or a righteous son who makes supplication for him.'

There are many things which the living can do to rescue the dead .They include supplication for them, asking forgiveness for them, acts of generosity, hajj, fasting and other sorts of worship. These can be attributed to the dead person with Allah's permission.

Even more important than all these is to settle the dead person's debts, whether that debt be financial or spiritual debts to other living persons or debts of worship owed to Allah the Great.

When someone who is alive intercedes for a dead person who is being punished, his punishment is halted, even if only for a time. When he intercedes for the person enjoying bliss, that person is raised a degree.

Ibn Abi’d-Dunya mentioned that one of his companions said, 'My brother died and I saw him in a dream. I said, "How was it when you were placed in your grave?" He replied, "Someone brought me a fiery flame and if it had not been that someone else made supplication for me, I think he would have hit me with it."

Bashar b. Ghalib said, ‘I saw Rabi’a, on whose behalf I used to make frequent supplication, in a dream. She said to me, "Bashar b. Ghalib! Your gifts have been brought to me on plates of light, covered in silken cloths." I asked, "How can that be?" She replied, "That is what the supplication of living believers is like. When they make supplication for a dead person, that supplication is answered for them on plates of light, veiled in silken cloths. Then they are brought to the dead person for whom the supplication was said and they are told, 'This is the gift of so-and-so to you.'

Hence A righteous son or a daughter is a true treasure for a man and profits him during his lifetime and after his death. Every father or mother should try as hard as they possibly can to bring up righteous children. Every son should try to obey his parents during their lifetime and after their death. It must be realised that a dead person knows what his living relatives and brothers are doing. It is said that a man in his grave delights in the righteousness of his children after him.

Courtesy of: An Abridgement of Ibn Al-Qayyim’s kitabur Ruh.