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Offering the funeral prayer for the deceased is a communal obligation. The duty is discharged 1 when any legally accountable person performs it, even if she is a woman.

Its eight conditions are: intention, legal accountability 2, facing the qiblah, covering the private parts, avoiding physical impurity, the deceased being present if he is within the town, both the worshiper and the deceased being Muslim, and the ritual purity of both—even if obtained through dry ablution with clean earth when necessary.

Its pillars are seven 3: standing for the obligatory prayer, the four takbīrs, reciting al-Fātiḥah, invoking blessings upon Muhammad 4, supplicating for the deceased, giving the salām, and keeping this sequence 5. The supplication need not be confined to the third takbīr; it may follow the fourth instead.

The procedure is as follows: he forms the intention, pronounces the first takbīr, and recites al-Fātiḥah; then he pronounces the second takbīr and invokes blessings upon Muhammad 6 as in the tashahhud; next he pronounces the third takbīr and prays for the deceased with words such as, “O Allah, have mercy on him.” After the fourth takbīr he pauses briefly 7 and ends with the salām. A single salām suffices, even if he omits the words “and the mercy of Allah.”