as your religion, Muhammad as your Prophet, and the Quran as your guide.’ For Munkar and Nakīr will each take the other by the hand and say: ‘Let us go. Why should we remain with someone who has been prompted with his answer?’ Allah would then take up his case in their stead.” A man asked: “O Messenger of Allah, what if he does not know his mother?” He replied: “Then he should name Eve as his mother, saying: ‘O so-and-so, son of Eve.’” This hadith cannot be authentically attributed to the Prophet (1).

However, al-Athram (2) said: “I asked Abū ʿAbd Allāh: ‘What about this practice of theirs after the deceased has been buried: a man stands and says, “O so-and-so, son of such-and-such a woman, remember what you held when you departed this life: the testimony that there is no god but Allah”?’ He replied: ‘I have never seen anyone do this except the people of Syria. When Abū al-Mughīrah died, someone came and said that. Abū al-Mughīrah used to relate, on the authority of Abū Bakr ibn Abī Maryam, that their elders practised it. Ibn ʿAyyāsh also used to narrate a report concerning it.’” I say: He means this hadith of Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh which al-Tabarānī narrated on the authority of Abū Umāmah.

Saʿīd ibn Mansūr also recorded in his Sunan (3), on the authority of Rāshid ibn Saʿd, Damrah ibn Habīb, and Hakīm ibn ʿUmayr, that they said: “Once the earth had been levelled over the deceased’s grave and the people had departed, they used to consider it commendable to address the deceased at his grave, saying: ‘O so-and-so, say: “There is no god but Allah. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah”—three times. O so-and-so, say: “My Lord is Allah, my religion is Islam, and my Prophet