Muwatta, Book of Funerals

The Book of Funerals is the second book of the Muwatta in the transmission of Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi from Malik ibn Anas, in the edition of Bashshar Awwad Ma'ruf (1997). It occupies pages 305 to 332 of the first volume in the PDF pagination, and contains 61 numbered texts (591–651) in sixteen chapters, from washing the dead to what is said at the funeral and what is awaited after death. The editor notes that in some copies this book comes after the Book of Jihad, an old difference in the order of the Muwatta; he kept it in its place here because it is in that position in many copies and commentaries ^{1 2}.

• Washing and shrouding the dead (591–599): the Prophet ﷺ was washed in a shirt; the Prophet's instruction to Umm Atiyya on washing his daughter; Asma bint Umays washing Abu Bakr; and Malik's view that washing the dead has no fixed form, but the body is washed and cleansed. Then the Prophet was shrouded in three white Sahuli garments, and Abu Bakr instructed that he be shrouded in a washed garment with two others, because the living have more need of new cloth than the dead. See washing the dead and shrouding the dead ^{1 3}.
• Walking before the bier, and the prohibition of following it with fire (600–605): the cut-off report of Ibn Shihab on the Prophet, Abu Bakr and Umar walking in front of the bier; Umar going before the people at the funeral of Zaynab bint Jahsh (may God be pleased with her); the instruction of Asma bint Abi Bakr (may God be pleased with her); and Abu Hurayra (may God be pleased with him)'s prohibition of following a bier with fire ^{3 4}.
• The funeral prayer (606–619): the announcement of the death of the Negus and the four takbirs over him; the poor woman over whose grave the Prophet prayed; Abu Hurayra's supplication at a funeral; praying after the afternoon and after the dawn prayer; praying over a bier in the mosque, and the report of Aisha on Suhayl ibn Bayda; and the placing of men near the imam and women nearest the qibla. See the funeral prayer ^{4 5}.
• Burial (620–628): Malik's cut-off report on the death of the Prophet and his burial in the place where he died, and the lahd (the niche) prepared for him; Aisha's dream of three moons; the burial of Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas and Sa'id ibn Zayd in Medina; Urwa's words on al-Baqi'; standing for funerals and then leaving it; and sitting on graves. See burial ^{5 6}.
• Weeping over the dead and seeking reward in affliction (629–636): the Prophet's visit to Abdallah ibn Thabit, and the count of martyrs as seven besides those slain in the way of God; Aisha's correction of Ibn Umar's saying about a dead person being punished for the weeping of the living; hadiths on seeking reward at the death of a child; Umm Salama's supplication at affliction; and the story of Muhammad ibn Ka'b al-Qurazi consoling al-Qasim ibn Muhammad. See seeking reward and martyrdom ^{6 7}.
• Grave-robbers, and a general chapter (637–651): the curse on the one who digs in secret, male and female; breaking a dead person's bone is like breaking it while alive; then hadiths on the last days of the Prophet's life and the Highest Companion; showing the dead their seat; the tail-bone; the soul of the believer; the love of meeting God; the man who ordered that he be burned; the natural disposition; the one who finds rest and the one from whom others find rest; Uthman ibn Maz'un; the Prophet's going out to al-Baqi' at night; and it ends with Abu Hurayra's saying: "Hurry with your dead." See the Hereafter and the punishment of the grave ^{7 2}.

Each chapter begins with a hadith from the Prophet, whether connected or cut off, then reports from Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali, Aisha, Ibn Umar, Abu Hurayra and the Successors of Medina. Malik closes some chapters with his own opinion or with what he heard from scholars. The book has seven reports cut off in the chain, which Malik relates with the words "it reached him that". The most famous of these is his comprehensive cut-off report on the death and burial of the Prophet. Ibn Abd al-Barr said that it is not transmitted in this sequence except from Malik's report, and that it is sound through several routes that Malik gathered ⁵.

Under each text the editor records those among Malik's students who transmitted it, and refers to the two Sahihs, the Sunan and the Musnad al-Jami'. He quotes Ibn Abd al-Barr on connection and cutting. For example, on the hadith of walking before the bier, he says that the correct transmission from Malik is cut off. He comments on the misreading "Jabir ibn Atik", holding that Jabir and Jabr are one person, and explains that the chain of the hadith of Abu al-Nadr al-Sulami is weak even though its text is sound through other routes. These judgements are kept in the museum's records under the names of those who gave them ^{8 6 9}.

Each text of the book has its own record. It gives, in their particular wording, what the text says, names its highest narrator and its chapter, and records the editor's takhrij, with a short excerpt from the text where it suits. The record numbered 617, which the first tally had missed, has been created ¹⁰.