Section Four: The Manner of the Ghusl

This section contains a number of questions:

Issue One
Should the deceased’s shirt be removed before the washing, or is he to be washed while still wearing it?
The jurists disagreed:
• Mālik said: “When the corpse is washed his garments are removed and only his ‘awrah is covered,” and this is also the view of Abū Ḥanīfah.
• Al-Shāfiʿī said: “He is to be washed in his shirt.”

The root of their divergence lies in the Prophet’s being washed—peace and blessings be upon him—in his own shirt: was that an exceptional ruling confined to him, or a Sunnah for the entire community?
• Whoever held that it was exclusive to him, and that nothing is forbidden to look at on a dead person except what was forbidden during his lifetime, said: “The deceased is washed naked save for the part that is unlawful to view while he is alive.”
• Whoever regarded it as Sunnah—and based this either on a point of consensus or on a divine command (for the ḥadīth relates: “They heard a voice say to them, ‘Do not remove the shirt,’ and drowsiness overtook them”)—said: “It is preferable that the dead be washed in his shirt.”

Issue Two
Abū Ḥanīfah said: “No wuḍūʾ is performed for the dead.”
Al-Shāfiʿī said: “He should be given wuḍūʾ.”
Mālik said: “If wuḍūʾ is performed, that is commendable.”

The reason for their disagreement is the clash between analogy and transmitted evidence.
Analogy dictates that no wuḍūʾ is required, for wuḍūʾ is a ritual purification prescribed for acts of worship; once worship is lifted from the deceased, its prerequisite—wuḍūʾ—falls away as well. Were it not for the textual reports requiring ghusl, even the washing itself would not be obligatory.

Yet the explicit wording of the sound ḥadīth of Umm ʿAṭiyyah makes wuḍūʾ a condition of washing the dead, for it states that the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—said concerning the washing of his daughter: “Begin with her right side and with the limbs normally washed in wuḍūʾ.”
This additional clause is authentic, narrated by al-Bukhārī and Muslim. Consequently, it must be weighed against the reports that mention ghusl without qualification, for a qualified text takes precedence over an unqualified one since it contains supplemental detail unknown to many. Another likely factor in the dispute is the reverse problem: the unqualified reports opposing the qualified. Numerous narrations simply command the washing of the dead without any mention of wuḍūʾ; those who favored these reports preferred the absolute to the qualified, reinforced in this instance by analogy. Al-Shāfiʿī, however, adhered to the foundational principle of interpreting the absolute in light of the qualified.