Can a husband wash his wife’s body after she dies?

In more detail

• A wife washing her husband

  Ibn al-Mundhir reports consensus that a wife may wash her husband, and ʿĀʾishah said that had they known then what they knew later, only his wives would have washed the Prophet ﷺ. In the Ḥanafī school she may wash him while she is still in her ʿiddah.

  Ibn Qudāmah, al-Mughnī (Ḥanbalī, with the other schools), 2:390 · Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-Muḥtār (Ḥanafī), 2:198–199

• SchoolMālikī

  Each spouse may wash the other, and the surviving spouse takes priority over the relatives.

  Al-Dardīr, al-Sharḥ al-Kabīr, with Ḥāshiyat al-Dasūqī (Mālikī), 1:407–408

• SchoolShāfiʿī

  A wife may wash her husband and a husband may wash his wife.

  Al-Nawawī, al-Majmūʿ (Shāfiʿī), 5:130 and 5:136

• SchoolḤanbalī

  A husband may wash his wife in the well-known report from Aḥmad; a second report agrees with Abū Ḥanīfah that he may not.

  Ibn Qudāmah, al-Mughnī (Ḥanbalī, with the other schools), 2:390

• SchoolḤanafī

  The husband is barred from washing and touching his wife, though he may look at her.

  Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-Muḥtār (Ḥanafī), 2:198–199

• The ḥadīth

  The Prophet ﷺ told ʿĀʾishah: if you were to die before me, I would wash you, shroud you, pray over you and bury you. Its grading is given in the citation.

  Sunan Ibn Mājah 1465 (ḥasan, al-Albānī, Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Mājah 1206; ḍaʿīf, Darussalam)