Home > Sira > The Eleventh Year of the Hijra: the Death of the Prophet
The year 11 of the Hijra: the signs of the approach of death, the Prophet's illness, his last prayer, his death, the events between his death and his burial, his grave in the chamber of Aïcha, his children, servants and scribes.
Updated on 07 October 2026 at 8:45 AM
Part of: The Year 11 of the Hijra: the Prophet's Illness and his Death
The dominant version: he was wrapped in three white Sahuli garments of kursuf, without shirt and without turban. Malik related it from Urwa, from Aïcha; Boukhari and Mouslim gathered it through several chains. Abou Dawoud adds: three white garments of the Yemen, of kursuf, without shirt nor turban; and it was recalled to Aïcha that it was said "two garments and a habara burd": she answered: the burd had indeed been brought, but they sent it back and did not use it for his shroud. The Bayhaqi thereby explains why people wavered over the habara: it was set aside from him. In the Sahih of Mouslim likewise: a garment had been bought for the shroud, then left; Abdallah ibn Abi Bakr took it and said: I shall keep it for myself, to be shrouded in it; then he said: had Allah been pleased with it for His Prophet, He would have shrouded him in it: and he sold it and gave the price in charity.
Other versions exist, several of them judged weak or very strange: three Yemeni bands (Mak’houl, a sole report of Ahmad); his very shirt in which he died, with a Najrani suit of two pieces (Ibn Abbas through Miqsam, very strange); two white garments and a red burd (Ibn Abbas through al-Hakam and al-Fadl); two bands and a Najrani burd (Abou Hourayra through Sa’id ibn al-Moussayyab, also held by Oum Salama through Qatada). Al-Qasim says, from Aïcha: he was wrapped in a habara garment, then it was taken off him, and the remains of that garment are with us to this day; the chain meets the standard of the two sheikhs. And Abou Ishaq said he met the Banu Abd al-Mouttalib gathered and asked them: in how many garments was the Messenger of Allah shrouded? They answered: in three garments, without shirt, without qaba and without turban. He asked: how many of you were taken captive at Badr? They answered: al-Abbas, Nawfal and ’Aqil.