wail for him or to commit any of the other reprehensible acts so commonly practiced nowadays, then he will not be punished. If, however, he neither leaves a testament nor offers such counsel, he is punished.

This distinction is the one that must be understood from the first interpretation advanced by many well-known scholars—among them al-Nawawī and others. Once this point is clear, it becomes evident that there is no contradiction between the ḥadīth and the Almighty’s word, “No bearer shall bear the burden of another” (Fatir 35:18). A clash appears only if one assumes that the definite article al- in al-mayyit (“the deceased”) is all-inclusive—as though every deceased person is punished. Under that assumption the ḥadīth would indeed seem at odds with the noble verse. But when we adopt the meaning set out above, no conflict or difficulty remains, for the one who is punished is punished solely because he failed to fulfil his duty of advising and instructing his family. This, then, is the first way the scholars have interpreted the ḥadīth so as to dispel the alleged contradiction.

The second approach is the one cited by Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah—may Allah have mercy on him—in some of his works: the “punishment” here is neither the torment of the grave nor the punishment of the Hereafter. Rather, it denotes pain and sorrow—that is, when the deceased