455 – Jabir ibn Samurah (may Allah be pleased with him) reported: “A man who had killed himself with mashāqis was brought to the Prophet ﷺ, and he did not perform the funeral prayer for him.” Recorded by Muslim (1).
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• Vocabulary of the ḥadith:

• mashāqis: a broken plural on the pattern mafāʿil, one of the so-called “ultimate plural” forms and therefore diptote; the term—plural of mishqaṣ—denotes a broad blade, i.e., the iron head of a spear, arrow, or knife.

• Lessons derived from the ḥadith:
  1 – There is a scholarly disagreement regarding the purport of these two ḥadiths, which we shall discuss, God willing.
  2 – Ḥadith no. 454 establishes the legitimacy of offering the funeral prayer for someone executed under a prescribed punishment (ḥadd). The Prophet ﷺ instructed his Companions to pray over the Ghamidiyyah and to bury her among the Muslims. In the longer version recorded by Muslim, the Prophet ﷺ himself prayed over her, and other narrations explicitly state that he did so in person.
  3 – The funeral prayer (ṣalāt al-janāzah) is, by unanimous agreement, a communal obligation. The duty is discharged when any legally responsible Muslim—male or female, according to the four Imams—performs it. The Prophet ﷺ observed it consistently, the Muslims are unanimously agreed upon it, and it ranks among the noblest acts of worship with immense reward. Al-Fākihī said: “The funeral prayer for the deceased is one of the distinguishing features of this ummah.”
  4 – Ḥadith no. 455 shows that whoever takes his own life commits a grave sin; therefore the leading imam should not pray over him, as a deterrent to others.