al-Kalam ala Wusul al-Qiraa lil-Mayyit li-Ibn Surur al-Maqdisi
- Author died
- 676 AH
- Editions
- al-Dār al-Athariyyah
al-Kalam ‘ala Wusul al-Qira’a lil-Mayyit (Discourse on the Reaching of the Reward of Recitation to the Deceased) is a concise theological and juridical treatise by the Hanbali jurist and hadith scholar Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Abd al-Wahid ibn Surur al-Maqdisi (d. 676 AH / 1277 CE) examining whether the reward of Quranic recitation benefits the deceased .
Background and Context
The author, who served as chief judge (qadi al-qudah) in Egypt and died in Cairo, composed the work in response to an inquiry regarding the Quranic verse: وَأَنْ لَيْسَ لِلإِنْسَانِ إِلا مَا سَعَى ("And that there is not for man except that [good] which he strives for" [al-Najm: 39]) and the answers given to those who rely on it to argue against the deceased receiving the reward of Quranic recitation .
Contents and Arguments
The treatise opens by classifying eight scholarly interpretations concerning verse 39 of Surah al-Najm :
- The first opinion, attributed to Ibn Abbas, is that the verse is abrogated by the verse وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَاتَّبَعَتْهُمْ ذُرِّيَّتُهُمْ بِإِيمَانٍ ("And those who believed and whose descendants followed them in faith" [al-Tur: 21]) .
- The second, transmitted from Ikrima, is that the verse applied specifically to the peoples of the prophets Ibrahim and Musa, whereas the Muslim community benefits both from its own striving and from what others do on its behalf .
- The eighth interpretation, cited from Abu al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzi via his teacher Ali ibn al-Zaghwani, posits that a person's striving includes not only what one performs directly, but also the causes one sets in motion, such as raising a righteous child who supplicates, gaining a friend who seeks forgiveness, or serving the religion so as to earn the love of the pious .
In the subsequent section, Ibn Surur adduces eight lines of proof (awjuh) supporting the arrival of rewards to the dead :
- Prophetic narrations equating bodily and financial acts of worship performed on behalf of the deceased—such as fasting, charity, and manumission—including the case of al-‘As ibn Wa’il .
- Traditions instructing that filial piety after a parent's death may take the form of prayer, fasting, and charity alongside one's own .
- Specific narrations encouraging the recitation of Surah al-Ikhlas and Surah Ya-Sin at graveyards and for deceased parents .
- General textual proofs regarding the efficacy of seeking forgiveness for deceased believers, supported by verse 10 of Surah al-Hashr: وَالَّذِينَ جَاءُوا مِنْ بَعْدِهِمْ يَقُولُونَ رَبَّنَا اغْفِرْ لَنَا وَلإِخْوَانِنَا الَّذِينَ سَبَقُونَا بِالإِيمَانِ .
- The continuous practice of Muslims across different lands assembling to recite the Quran and donate the reward to their dead without denunciation, constituting a form of consensus (ijma') .
The author addresses the opposing view based on the hadith of actions ceasing upon death, stating that it reports cessation from that specific avenue without precluding benefit from other avenues such as Hajj, debt settlement, or Quranic recitation . He also cites Abu Sulayman al-Khattabi's commentary on the Prophet's placement of two fresh palm branches on graves: if unsevered branches alleviate punishment through their glorification of God, Quranic recitation achieves this all the more . Additionally, he quotes Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din regarding Ahmad ibn Hanbal's retraction of his initial disapproval of recitation at the grave after being informed of the transmission tracing the practice to Abdullah ibn Umar .
Transmission and Publication
A manuscript copy of the treatise is held at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin (MS 3666/9, fols. 163–173) . The text was edited by Shawkat ibn Rifqi Shahaltough and published in 1430 AH / 2009 CE by al-Dar al-Athariyyah in Amman as part of a four-treatise compendium on gifting the reward of Quranic recitation to the dead .
Answer updated