Answer: These funeral assemblies that people set up—what they call “condolence gatherings”—along with erecting marquees, bringing crowds together inside them, hiring Qur’an-reciters, preparing food and drink, and the like, are all newly invented, blameworthy innovations—burdens and shackles for which Allah has sent down no authority. The matter is even more serious when the expenses are taken from the deceased’s estate: the deceased may have left debts, or minor heirs who genuinely need that money. In such a case the sin and the harm are far greater, for besides being an innovation and a reprehensible act, it is also an injustice to those who have legitimate claims. Once a person dies, his estate passes to the heirs, and if he owes debts it belongs to the creditors. Spending from it on these innovated mourners’ gatherings therefore brings together two wrongs:

First: it is an evil innovation;
Second: it is an injustice to the rightful claimants.

A third objection is that establishing such gatherings reflects impatience and discontent with the calamity, for prolonging the mourning period and assembling people in this way expresses undue anguish over the deceased.

What is obligatory for a Muslim is to remain patient when calamity strikes, to refrain from displaying panic or excessive grief, to accept Allah’s decree and divine destiny, and to persevere while seeking reward; that is what is required of the believer.

When someone puts up these marquees and holds such assemblies, it shows that he has not been patient and is in a state of agitation, needing people to come, sit with him, and while away the time.

We therefore counsel and advise the Muslims to steer clear of these practices—these harmful customs and reprehensible innovations, these funeral gatherings for which Allah has provided no warrant, gatherings that consume time, waste wealth, and open the door to further evil.