—“They were believers, not unbelievers.”

Muhammad ibn Sīrīn said, “We do not know of a single person—whether from the Companions of Muhammad ﷺ or from the Followers—who ever refrained from performing the funeral prayer for someone of the People of the Qiblah out of fear of sin.”

Al-Nakhaʿī said, “They never withheld the prayer from anyone who faced the Qiblah.”

ʿAṭāʾ said, “Offer the funeral prayer for anyone who prays toward your Qiblah.”

Al-Ḥasan said, “If he says, ‘Lā ilāha illā Allah,’ then pray over him.”

Rabīʿah said, “Once a person acknowledges Allah, it is his right that the funeral prayer be performed for him.”

Mālik, in the narration transmitted from him by Ibn Wahb, stated, “To me the soundest and most just position is that if someone has declared, ‘Lā ilāha illā Allah,’ and then dies, he should be washed and the funeral prayer should be offered for him.”

Abū Isḥāq al-Fazārī said, “I asked al-Awzāʿī and Sufyān al-Thawrī, ‘Do you ever abstain from praying over anyone of the People of the Qiblah, no matter what he has done?’ They replied, ‘No.’”

The same view was held by al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad, Isḥāq, Abū Thawr, and Abū ʿUbayd.