“Prepare food for the family of Jaʿfar, for a calamity has come upon them that preoccupies them.” Reported by Ahmad and al-Tirmidhi, who declared it sound.

What some people do nowadays—where the bereaved household sets aside a venue for visitors to gather, provides meals, hires reciters to read Quran, and incurs considerable expenses—is one of the forbidden, innovated mourning banquets (maʾtam). Imam Ahmad narrates from Jarīr ibn ʿAbd Allāh who said: “We used to regard gathering at the house of the deceased and preparing food after his burial as a form of wailing.” Its chain of transmission is reliable.

Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728 AH) remarked: “For the family suffering a bereavement to assemble people over their food so that they may recite and dedicate the reward to the deceased was unknown among the early generations; several scholars disapproved of it from more than one angle.”

Al-Ṭurṭūshī said: “As for maʾātim—formal mourning gatherings—they are unanimously forbidden by the scholars. A maʾtam is the congregation convened over a calamity; it is a reprehensible innovation with no precedent in the tradition. The same applies to later assemblies held on the second, the third, the fourth day, or after a month or a year—this is a grave violation, especially if the expenses come out of the estate when among the heirs is one who is legally incapable or has not given consent.”