and leaves you inside this narrow niche, alone with your deeds: if they are good, then good awaits you; if they are evil, you will find evil. For this reason the scholars have said that it is disliked for a person accompanying a funeral procession to engage in worldly conversation, or to smile and laugh.

Likewise, when you arrive at the cemetery and sit waiting for the burial, you should ponder your own fate: just as people are now waiting to bury this man, one day they will be waiting to bury you. If others are present, you may tell them what the Prophet ﷺ once told his Companions. He had gone out with the bier of a man from the Anṣār, and when he reached the grave before it had been prepared, he sat down. His Companions sat around him while he held a small stick with which he scratched the ground, reflecting. He then spoke to them about what occurs at the moment of death and at the burial, thus combining admonition with the act of escorting the deceased.

This kind of gentle reminder is not the same as what some of our brothers do today in certain places, where a man stands and delivers a formal sermon to the people. Such a practice was unknown in the time of the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions. Rather, when the Prophet ﷺ sat awaiting the grave to be made ready and his Companions sat with him, he addressed them informally, sharing words that were beneficial and appropriate to the occasion.

On another occasion, the Prophet ﷺ was present at the burial of one of his daughters, and