Islamic Fiqh > Funerals > Caring for the dying person
What is recommended near the dying person: facing the qibla, prompting the shahada, remembrance of Allah and the patience of those present.
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Updated on 31 August 2026 at 3:55 AM
The chapters of funerals open before death: the encyclopedia describes what those surrounding the dying person do, then the urgency of his debts.
Prompt your dying ones to say: none deserves to be worshipped except Allah.Muslim 916
The recommendation gathers the scholars' unanimity (an-Nawawi): the word of oneness is made gently audible to him, without insistence or repetition, for fear of annoying him in his distress; if it leaves his mouth once, it is not repeated to him, unless he speaks of something else afterwards. If words of disbelief escape him in delirium, he is not judged a disbeliever: he is treated as the dead of the Muslims, considering him struck by loss of reason.
The agreement of the four imams is recorded (an-Nawawi, Ibn Hubayra): when his sight begins to fade, he is turned toward the qibla, laid on his right side, in the image of the position in the grave; if the place does not allow it, on the left side, then on his back with his head slightly raised. He is not turned before that moment, so as not to frighten him.
Those present remember Allah and multiply the invocation for him so that his passage be made easy, and say nothing before him but good: it is a moment of remembrance, not of distraction. The relative's presence aims to comfort him, close his eyes and fulfill his rights.
The encyclopedia records the recommendation to settle his debts without waiting, based on the Prophet's words: « the believer's soul remains suspended by his debt until it is paid on his behalf » (reported from Abu Hurayra). If payment is impossible at once, the heir or another takes the debt in charge in his place: Abu Qatada said to the Prophet about a deceased man: « pray over him, and his debt is upon me », and he prayed. The validity of such a guarantee gathers most of the imams, Abu Hanifa having restricted it.
These simple gestures (gentle prompting, orientation, calm presence, debts settled) form the first duty toward the dying person, before the washing and the prayer.