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Is there any religious evidence for preventing a wife from seeing her deceased husband's body, based on a widespread custom among Hanafis in India?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

A woman is permitted to see the body of her deceased husband, and she is even allowed to wash him as long as she is within her iddah (waiting period). However, if her iddah ends, for instance, by giving birth, then she is not permitted to do so. Wailing over the deceased is forbidden. As for a woman seeing her maharim (unmarriageable kin), this has no connection to her husband's death; she is allowed to see them, shake their hands, and converse with them. This has no relation to the superstitions and ignorance of the common people.

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

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