This, however, does not conflict with the verse, “and that each person will have only what he has striven for” (53:39), nor with the Prophet’s ﷺ saying, “When the son of Adam dies, his deeds come to an end,” for the reward that reaches the deceased is still counted among his own deeds.
The matter works as follows: Allah rewards the living person for the effort he exerts, shows mercy to the deceased through that effort, and adds to the latter’s record of good deeds.
The jurists disagreed over whether purely bodily acts of worship—such as prayer, fasting, and recitation of the Quran—benefit the dead.
• Abū Ḥanīfah and Aḥmad held that the reward of such acts does reach them.
• Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī maintained that it does not, restricting benefit to financial acts of worship along with supplication and seeking forgiveness.
The proofs cited by Abū Ḥanīfah and Aḥmad include:
- Supplication and seeking forgiveness are themselves bodily acts of worship; by analogy, other bodily rites should likewise benefit the deceased.
- Fasting is a bodily act of worship, yet the two Ṣaḥīḥs relate that the Prophet ﷺ said, “Whoever dies owing fasts, his guardian should fast on his behalf.”
- Al-Bukhārī reports that a woman said, “Messenger of Allah, my mother died while she still owed a vowed fast.” He replied, “Fast on behalf of your mother.”
Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī rely on the verse: “and that each person will have only what he has striven for” (53:39).
The answer is that while a person owns nothing but his own deeds, this does not preclude someone else from gifting him the fruit of his deeds, thereby increasing the deceased’s good works.
Ibn al-Qayyim has responded to their evidence in Kitāb al-Rūḥ with arguments that leave no further room for addition.