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Is it sufficient to wash a newborn child with warm water only, without soap or perfume, and to shroud him with a clean piece of cloth instead of the legal shroud due to its unavailability?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

If the washing of the deceased has been performed proficiently, it is sufficient even if no perfume (ṭīb) was used, as its use is not a condition for the validity of the washing. The minimum acceptable for the washing is purification. For the shroud, a single garment that covers the entire body or just the awrah (private parts) is sufficient. As for the funeral prayer (Salat al-Janazah), it is a communal obligation (fard kifayah). If the deceased is buried without the prayer, it is permissible to pray over their grave as long as no more than a month has passed since the burial.

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

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