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Expiatory payments on behalf of the dead?

Answered as per Hanafi Fiqh by Qibla.com

Answered by Shaykh Sohail Hanif, SunniPath Academy Teacher

My grandmother’s mother died at an early age. My grandmother’s mother was not very punctual with her prayers.  My grandmother wants to know what should she do about this.  Should she pray the qada prayers of her mother, or would it be possible to feed the hungry (what would be the nisaab)?

Answer:
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Walaikum assalam,

It is not permissible or valid to pray on behalf of another.

However, it is valid to make the expiatory payments on their behalf, and one would hope that Allah forgive (or, at least, lessen) the sin of their remissness

The expiation is approximately 2 kg of wheat per prayer missed. This is 6 prayers a day (including witr!) These should be paid to the poor (those zakat-eligible):

Assalamu alaykum

The fidya (expiatory payment) is paid by someone appointed by the deceased person or an inheritor from a third of the deceased’s wealth, as the remaining two thirds is the property of the inheritors and they cannot be forced to part with it.  For each obligatory prayer missed as well as the witr prayer and for each obligatory fast missed, one pays the monetary equivalent of 2 kg of wheat.

It is permissible to pay the fidya for the prayers and the fasts to a single person in one bulk payment.  If the wealth that the deceased person had directed be used to pay for the fidya is not enough or if the deceased didn’t leave any direction but the inheritor wishes to pay but is not able to cover the complete amount, he pays what he has to a poor person to cover that amount of what was due of the fidya.  The poor person then gifts him the money which he again gives to the poor person who again gifts it back and so on until they have covered what was due of the fidya.

One also pays to make up for missed zakats, for someone to offer the hajj on his behalf, for supererogatory prayers and fasts that were not completed, for not having slaughtered on ‘id, for the sadaqa al-fitr, and other missed financial obligations. [al-Hadiyya al-‘Ala’iyya, 117]

What we can all learn from this is the extreme seriousness of having missed our religious obligations.  We must all strive to firstly calculate exactly what we have missed of our prayers, fasts and other duties, and then make an effective plan to make these up while we still can.  In addition a record should be kept of what remains of one’s make-ups so that inheritors will know how much fidya is to be paid.

We ask Allah for tawfiq in offering that which is due of us and in making up that which we owe and acceptance for that which we have offered.

Sohail Hanif

This answer was indexed from Qibla.com, which used to have a repository of Islamic Q&A answered by various scholars. The website is no longer in existence. It has now been transformed into a learning portal with paid Islamic course offering under the brand of Kiflayn.

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