This, then, is a mercy from Allah, for had we been able to hear what the dead utter while being carried on their biers, we would have been shaken to the core. Allah has concealed it from us—though the beasts can hear it and so can every other creature—so that the righteous soul merely cries out, “Advance me, advance me!” And to what is it being hastened? To the bliss Allah has prepared for it, the glad tidings already shown to it at the moment of death.

By contrast, if the deceased was not righteous, she will wail, “Yā waylahā—woe to her! Where are you taking her?” We seek refuge with Allah. She calls for her own doom because she is being brought—may Allah protect us—to the torment of the grave, where it will tighten around her until her ribs interlock and a gate to the Fire is opened before her. No living human senses any of this, and, again, it is a blessing from Allah that He has veiled it; had we been aware of it, we would never bury one another.

This fact also shows that one of the rights a deceased Muslim has over us is that we make haste with him. For this reason the jurists have stated that it is recommended (sunnah) to speed up the preparation and burial—unless the person died suddenly, in which case we delay until death is certain, for it may only be a faint and the person still alive. Once certainty is established, we proceed quickly. Allah alone grants success.