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When a child dies

Nothing prepares a parent for this. The steps are the same as for any death, and your masjid will carry as much of it as you let them.

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  1. Call the masjid’s funeral committee

    They arrange the washing, the shroud, the prayer and the burial, as for any Muslim. Tell the hospital early that you need a quick release for burial.

  2. The prayer is the same, with its own duʿāʾ

    The janazah prayer has the same four takbīrs. After the third, the imam prays for the child and for the parents. You can pray in your own words.

    How the janazah prayer is prayed

  3. A miscarriage or a stillborn child

    Scholars differ on whether a baby who died before birth is washed, named and prayed over, depending on how far the pregnancy had come. Ask your imam; there is no wrong question.

  4. Your child’s place

    The Prophet ﷺ said that a Muslim whose three children die before puberty will be granted Paradise by Allah, out of His mercy to them. As his grandchild was dying, he wept, and called it mercy.

    Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1248 · Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1284