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Is what is rumored true, that the deceased's body is exposed to stages of tribulations and ordeals after death, and that praying for them on specific days after death is desirable based on that?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Supplicating for the deceased after burial is a Sunnah. It is legislated to supplicate for deceased Muslims in general, and for relatives in particular, at any time, due to the generality of the Quranic verses. However, delaying supplication for the deceased for three days, then supplicating for ten, twenty, or forty days, under the pretext that their body is undergoing stages of decomposition, is an act contrary to the Sunnah, a claim without proof, and a reprehensible innovation. The mentioned hadiths about the explosion of the head or stomach are false and have no basis in the Sunnah or modern medicine. Scholars have explicitly stated the innovativeness of the practice of the forty-day mourning period for the deceased. Furthermore, women visiting graves with this intention and observing mourning for a year or more are among the reprehensible acts. As for the stages of bodily decomposition, this is something Allah knows, and it varies between bodies. There is no need to know its details; what is more important is the state of the soul in the grave, whether in bliss or torment. The corpse may remain undecomposed while its owner is in torment, or the corpse may completely disintegrate while its owner is among those in bliss. Torment and bliss in the grave pertain to the soul, and it may connect with the body. What has been mentioned regarding the detailed decomposition of the body and supplicating for the deceased for forty days based on that is a statement without proof, a reprehensible innovation, and an abominable act that must not be practiced.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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