From one side of the room—none knew who the speaker was—a voice called out: “Wash the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and grant him peace) while his clothes remain on him.” They therefore went to the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and grant him peace) and washed him while he was wearing a long shirt, pouring water over the shirt and rubbing him through it, without touching him directly.
ʿĀʾishah used to say, “Had I known then what I came to know later, none would have undertaken the washing of the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and grant him peace) but his wives.” Abū Dāwūd (1) records this through Ibn Isḥāq.
Imām Aḥmad (2) said: “Yaʿqūb narrated to us; my father narrated from Ibn Isḥāq; he said: Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh related to me, from ʿIkrimah, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said:
The people assembled to wash the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and grant him peace), and in the house there was no one but his own kin: his uncle al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, al-Faḍl ibn ʿAbbās, Qutham ibn ʿAbbās, Usāmah ibn Zayd ibn Ḥārithah, and his freedman Ṣāliḥ. When they were set to wash him, Aws ibn Khawli al-Anṣārī—one of the Banū ʿAwf ibn al-Khazraj and a veteran of Badr—called to ʿAlī from behind the people, saying, ‘O ʿAlī, I adjure you by Allah and by our share in the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and grant him peace)…’ ʿAlī replied, ‘Enter.’ He went in and attended the washing of the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and grant him peace) but did not handle any part of it.
ʿAlī supported him against his chest while he was still clothed; al-ʿAbbās, al-Faḍl, and Qutham turned him with ʿAlī; Usāmah ibn Zayd and their freedman Ṣāliḥ poured the water, and ʿAlī performed the washing. He did not see from the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and grant him peace) anything that one ordinarily sees from the deceased, and he kept saying, “May my father and mother be your ransom—how pure you are, alive and dead!”
When they had completed the washing—he was washed with water and lote-leaf—they dried him and did with him what is customarily done with the dead. Then he was wrapped in three pieces of cloth: two white garments and a striped Hibara mantle.
He (Ibn ʿAbbās) said: Al-ʿAbbās then summoned two men and said, “Let one of you go to Abū ʿUbaydah ibn al-Jarrāḥ—Abū ʿUbaydah used to prepare the niche-graves for the people of Mecca—and let the other go to Abū Ṭalḥah ibn Sahl al-Anṣārī; Abū Ṭalḥah used to dig the lahd-graves for the people of Medina.” After dispatching them, al-ʿAbbās prayed, “O Allah, choose what is best for Your Messenger!” They set off; the man who went to Abū ʿUbaydah did not find him, whereas the one who went to Abū Ṭalḥah found him, and Abū Ṭalḥah dug the lahd for the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and grant him peace). Aḥmad alone records this version.
Yūnus ibn Bukayr also transmitted—through al-Mundhir ibn Thaʿlabah (5) from al-ʿIlbāʾ ibn Aḥmar—that ʿAlī and al-Faḍl were washing the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and grant him peace) when a caller said to ʿAlī, ‘Raise your gaze to the sky.’ This chain, however, is broken.
I say: Some of the compilers of the Sunan (6) have likewise narrated from ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib that the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and grant him peace) said to him, ‘O ʿAlī…’