It is also authentically related that the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said:
“If a wailing woman does not repent before her death, on the Day of Resurrection she will be clothed in a shirt of scabies and a garment of pitch.” (1)
A wailing woman was brought before Umar ibn al-Khattāb—may Allah be pleased with him—and he ordered that she be beaten. He was told, “Commander of the Faithful, her hair has become exposed.”
He replied, “She has no inviolability, for she discourages patience, which Allah has commanded; she encourages anguish, which Allah has forbidden; she leads the living into temptation and harms the deceased; she sells her tears and weeps over another person’s sorrow. She does not weep for your deceased; she weeps only to take your dirhams.”
(1) The hadith narrated on the authority of Abū Mālik al-Asharī—may Allah be pleased with him—together with another hadith preceding it, is recorded in Muslim, 2/644 (*Book of Funerals*, chapter “The Stern Warning Against Wailing”). The first hadith begins: “Four practices in my community belong to the Age of Ignorance…” The second hadith reads: “If a woman who wails does not repent before she dies, she will be made to stand on the Day of Resurrection wearing a garment of pitch and a shift of scabies.” The hadith is also recorded with some variation in wording in *Sunan Ibn Mājah*, 1/503–504 (*Book of Funerals*, chapter “The Prohibition of Wailing”), and *al-Musnad* (al-Halabī ed.), 5/342–343. In his *Sunan*, 1/504, Ibn Mājah also records a hadith with similar wording on the authority of Ibn Abbās—may Allah be pleased with them both. The note on that hadith explains its weakness. This hadith appeared previously at 1/53–54.