hears his family weeping over him, he is filled with distress and sorrow on account of their grief for him. This, according to Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, is the intended meaning; and if it were sound, it would eliminate the objection at its root. Yet I contend that this reading clashes with two established facts, and for that reason we are compelled to adopt the first interpretation of the ḥadīth.

The first fact is that in the report of al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah—may Allah be pleased with him—cited earlier, there is an additional phrase which makes clear that “punishment” here does not signify mere pain but the punishment that immediately comes to mind: the punishment of the Fire, unless Allah pardons, as He plainly says, “Indeed, Allah does not forgive that partners be associated with Him, but He forgives anything less than that for whomever He wills” (al-Nisāʾ 4:48). In al-Mughīrah’s wording, “The deceased is surely punished for his family’s weeping over him on the Day of Resurrection.” This statement expressly indicates that the deceased is punished because of his family’s lamenting on the Day of Judgment, not in the grave—the very sensation of pain and sorrow to which Ibn Taymiyyah restricted the meaning.

The second fact is that once a person dies he no longer senses anything that occurs around him, whether good or evil, as the proofs of the Qur’an and Sunnah show—except in a few specific instances that have been mentioned in