I was present when the daughter of God’s messenger was being buried. He was sitting beside the grave and I saw his eyes shedding tears. He then asked, “Is there any of you who did not have sexual intercourse last night?” Abu Talha replied that he had not, so he told him to go down into her grave, and he did so.
‘Amr b. al-‘As said to his son when he was in the throes of death, “When I die let no wailing woman or fire accompany me, and when you bury me scatter earth lightly over me, then stand round my grave as long as it takes to sacrifice an animal and have its flesh distributed, so that I may feel you near and know what to answer my Lord’s messengers.”( i.e. Munkar and Naklr who examine the dead in the grave)
Al-Bara’ b. ‘Azib said, “We went out with God’s messenger to the funeral of a man of the Ansar, but when we reached the grave the niche in the side had not yet been made, so the Prophet sat down facing the qibla and we sat down along with him.”
Abu Dawud, Nasa’i and Ibn Majah transmitted it, Ibn Majah adding “quietly”. (Literally, as though the birds were over our heads. An explanation of the phrase is that when a bird alights on a camel’s head and begins to pick the ticks off it, the camel stands perfectly still so as not to frighten it away.)
