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Is there no one, not even the righteous believers, who will escape the crushing of the grave?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The embrace of the grave (dhammat al-qabr) is something no one escapes, whether old or young, righteous or wicked. Prophetic hadiths affirming this have been narrated, among them what An-Nasa'i reported from Ibn 'Umar (may Allah be pleased with both of them) that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said regarding Sa'd ibn Mu'adh: "He was given a squeeze, then it was eased for him." And what Ahmad reported from 'A'ishah (may Allah be pleased with her) that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: "Indeed, the grave has a squeeze; if anyone were to escape it, Sa'd ibn Mu'adh would have escaped it." In Al-Mu'jam Al-Kabir by At-Tabarani, it is reported from Abu Ayyub (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: "If anyone were to escape the embrace of the grave, this child would have escaped."

Al-Ramli mentioned that the difference between a Muslim and a disbeliever regarding the embrace of the grave lies in its permanence for the disbeliever, while for the Muslim, it occurs upon first entering the grave, and then it is eased for them. He also stated that Muslims experience it differently according to their deeds.

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

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