Funeral prayer for the suicide and the great sinner

Suicide is a great sin expressly warned against: the Prophet said of the one who kills himself with iron that he "will thrust that iron into his hand and torment himself with it in the fire of Hell, forever" (Muslim 110; a similar warning for poison and for plunging from a height, al-Bukhari 5700). Yet he remains a Muslim: the scholars bury him in the Muslim cemetery and supplicate for him.

The status of the one who killed himself

• A sinful Muslim, not an apostate: suicide does not remove one from the religion; his heirs inherit and his funeral follows the rites (the divergence bears only on the public prayer);
• the hope of forgiveness: the hadith of the man who killed a hundred souls and was forgiven (Muslim 2766); psychological distress is a recognised mitigating factor: full responsibility requires lucidity;
• prevention is a communal obligation: "do not kill yourselves" (sura an-Nisa 29): accompany distress, speak about care, never trivialise.

The divergence on the public funeral prayer

• The majority: praying over the one who killed himself as over any sinful Muslim; the classical precedent is the woman of Juhayna who came to declare herself pregnant through adultery, was stoned after giving birth, and over whom the Prophet prayed, answering Umar: "she has made a repentance which, divided among seventy of the people of Medina, would have sufficed them" (Muslim 1455);
• Malik and a part of the scholars: leaving the public prayer (the imam abstains, the people pray) to mark the gravity and deter; Ahmad reported that the Prophet did not pray over the one who killed himself nor over the thief; that abstention aims at public protection, not at condemning the dead;
• Ibn Baz (fatwa no. 13700, official site): the prayer is performed over the one who killed himself: the sin does not prevent praying over him; he is washed, shrouded, prayed over and buried in the cemetery of the Muslims;
• the Standing Committee for Fatwas and the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta: the same answer: full treatment as a Muslim dead; the gravity of the sin removes none of these rights.

Mourning a suicide

The family goes through a doubled mourning: full Muslim rites (ghusl, kafan, burial), supplication for the dead, and the punishment left to Allah: "Allah does not forgive that partners be ascribed to Him, and He forgives beyond that to whom He wills" (sura an-Nisa 48). Declaring the suicide damned is forbidden: his final outcome belongs to Allah alone.

Practical note

Facing dark thoughts (oneself or a loved one): speak, seek care, do not remain alone. The religion protects life: despair is forbidden, hope is a duty: "do not despair of the mercy of Allah" (sura az-Zumar 53).