Among the times in which prayer is forbidden

Commenting on the hadith of ʿUqbah ibn ʿĀmir—“There are three hours in which the Messenger of Allah ﷺ forbade us to perform prayer or to bury our dead…”—the author wrote:

“The prohibition of burying during these hours concerns the person who deliberately delays the burial until that time; if the burial happens then unintentionally, it is not disliked.”

I say: This is the exact wording of al-Nawawī in his Commentary on Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, and it would have been better had the author attributed it to him. Moreover, the hadith is unrestricted, and limiting it to deliberate postponement is without proof, as I clarified in Ahkām al-Janāʾiz, section 83. Therefore, the burial should be deferred until the period of dislike has ended, unless one fears the corpse may deteriorate. This is also the Hanbalī view, as the author noted in the chapter on funerals.

Regarding their position on praying at sunrise, sunset, and when the sun is at its zenith:

He says, “The Ḥanafīs excepted the ʿAṣr prayer of that day and the funeral prayer.”

I say: Excluding the current day’s ʿAṣr prayer is correct, but exempting the funeral prayer is untenable, for no evidence supports it. On the contrary, the general wording of the aforementioned hadith of ʿUqbah and similar reports includes it. This is reinforced by the fact that Ibn ʿUmar used to forbid praying over a bier at sunrise, as recorded in the Muwaṭṭaʾ and elsewhere. What ought to be excepted instead is a forgotten prayer or one missed through sleep; whenever it is remembered, it should be performed even during a disliked time, in accordance with the two Shaykhs’ hadith cited in the preceding chapter.

Furthermore, the author’s note that some leading scholars allow voluntary prayer on Friday when the sun is at its zenith is also correct, and numerous hadiths support it; see Zād al-Maʿād and Aʿlām Ahl al-ʿAṣr bi-Ḥukm Rakʿatay al-Fajr by al-ʿAẓīm Ābādī, among other works.