937 – Abu Hurayrah — may Allah be pleased with him — said: “I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) say, ‘When you perform the funeral prayer over a deceased person, devote yourselves to sincere supplication for him.’” Related by Abu Dāwūd.

[Commentary]
This ḥadith deals with the supplications that are said during the funeral prayer. The ḥadith of ʿAwf ibn Mālik — mentioned earlier — contained a specific supplication for the deceased. The supplication cited here by the author is the general one: the person who leads the funeral prayer says, “O Allah, forgive our living and our dead, our young and our old, our males and our females, those present among us and those absent.”

All these separate clauses could actually be combined into a single sentence; if one were simply to say, “O Allah, forgive our living and our dead,” it would cover everyone. Yet in supplication it is commendable to expand and spell things out, for every phrase of duʿāʾ is in itself an act of worship, and repeating such phrases only increases one’s reward.

His words “our living and our dead” include those who are alive now, those who died long ago, and those who will die in our own time. Likewise, “our young and our old” embraces both age groups. Mention is made of the young even though a child has no sins, purely for the sake of completeness, for in truth the child has no sin that requires forgiveness. The phrase “our males and our females” is equally inclusive. Finally, “those present and those absent” encompasses both those who are here and those who are travelling.