Jabir said that when a funeral passed by God’s messenger stood up and they stood up along with him. They told him it was a Jewish funeral and he replied, “Death is a fearful event, so when you see a funeral stand up.”
He reported God’s messenger as saying, “When you see a funeral stand up; but anyone who follows it must not sit down till the bier is placed on the ground.”
‘Ali said, “We saw God’s messenger stand up so we stood up; he then sat down and we sat down,” the reference being to a funeral.
Muslim transmitted it. The version of Malik and Abu Dawud says, “He stood up for a funeral, then sat down afterwards.”(There is some doubt as to whether this means that he sat down after the funeral had passed, or whether the point is that the Prophet’s practice had been to stand up but that he later stopped doing so. Cf. the tradition from ‘Ali on p. 353)
Abu Sa'id reported God’s messenger as saying, “When a corpse is placed on a bier and men carry it on their shoulders, if it was a good man it says, ‘Take me quickly’; but if it was not good it says to its bearers, ‘Woe to it, where are you taking it?’ Everything but mankind hears its voice, and were a human being to hear it he would faint.”
