Abu Musa said he heard God’s messenger say, “If anyone dies and the mourner gets up and says, ‘Alas for the mountain! Alas for the chief!’ and such like, God will put two angels in charge of him who will beat him on the breast and ask him whether he was like that.”
Tirmidhi transmitted it, saying this is a gharib hasan tradition.
An-Nu‘man b. Bashir said that when ‘Abdallah b. Rawaha fainted his sister ‘Amra began to weep and shout, “Alas for the mountain! (The word which basically means a mountain is also used for a chief. In the next tradition from Abu Musa two expressions are used, one being the same as here and the other using a normal word for a chief. I have therefore kept the flavour of the original by retaining the word mountain) Alas for such and such! Alas for such and such !” eulogising him. When he came round he said, “I was asked about everything you said whether I am like that.” A version has the addition that when he died she did not weep for him.
Abu Huraira said that a member of the family of God’s messenger died and that the women gathered and wept for him. ‘Umar then arose and forbade and repulsed them, but God’s messenger said, “Let them alone, ‘Umar, for the eye is tearful, the heart is afflicted, and the matter has happened recently.”
Umm Salama told that when Abu Salama died she said he had been a stranger in a strange land and that she would weep for him in a manner which would be talked of. She had made preparations for weeping and a woman who meant to assist her was on her way when she was met by God’s messenger who said, “Do you intend to bring the devil into a house from which God has twice driven him out?”(Abu Salama had emigrated both to Abyssinia and to Medina and this may be the reference here; or it may be explained as meaning that the devil was driven out first when he accepted Islam and secondly when he died as a Muslim) Umm Salama therefore refrained from weeping and did not weep.
