Third: Washing the deceased.

Among the funeral rulings is that performing the ghusl (ritual washing) of the dead becomes obligatory for every Muslim who learns of the death and is able to carry it out. Concerning the man who was killed when his mount threw him, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Wash him with water and lote-leaf powder…,” a ḥadith agreed upon by al-Bukhārī and Muslim. The obligation of washing the deceased is multiply transmitted (tawātur) in Islam, both in teaching and in practice; even the Prophet ﷺ himself—despite being intrinsically pure—was washed, so how much more is this required for anyone else. Thus, washing the dead is a communal duty (farḍ kifāyah) upon those Muslims who are aware of the case.

A man is to be washed by a man. The preferable and superior course is to choose for the task a trustworthy individual who is knowledgeable about the rulings of ghusl, for it is a legal act with a specific form that can only be fulfilled correctly by someone versed in its prescribed manner. The deceased’s named executor has first claim to carry out the washing; if the deceased instructed that a particular person perform it and that person is upright and reliable, the bequest takes precedence. Abū Bakr ﵁, for example, directed that his wife Asmāʾ bint ʿUmays wash him, which shows that a woman may wash her husband just as a man may