Can I give sadaqah on behalf of someone who has died?

In more detail

• His mother died suddenly

  A man said: my mother died suddenly, and I think that if she could have spoken she would have given charity. May I give charity on her behalf? The Prophet ﷺ said: yes, give charity on her behalf.

  Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2760 · Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1004a

• Saʿd’s garden

  Saʿd ibn ʿUbādah’s mother died while he was away. He asked whether charity on her behalf would benefit her, and the Prophet ﷺ said yes. Saʿd then gave his garden in charity for her.

  Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2756

• Even without a will

  A man whose father died without making a will asked whether charity on his behalf would expiate for him. The Prophet ﷺ said yes.

  Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1630

• The four schools agree

  Al-Nawawī says charity reaches the dead by the consensus of scholars. The Ḥanafī and Ḥanbalī texts say the same, and the Mālikī text notes that the early generations’ practice for their dead was charity and duʿāʾ.

  Al-Nawawī, Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (Shāfiʿī), 7:90 · Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-Muḥtār (Ḥanafī), 2:243 (on reciting for the dead and gifting its reward) · Ibn Qudāmah, al-Mughnī (Ḥanbalī, with the other schools), 2:422–424 · Al-Dardīr, al-Sharḥ al-Kabīr, with Ḥāshiyat al-Dasūqī (Mālikī), 1:423

• Charity that continues

  When a person dies, his deeds come to an end except three: ongoing charity, knowledge that is benefited from, or a righteous child who prays for him.

  Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1631

• Their debts come first

  Charity for them is a gift. It does not take the place of their debts, which are paid from the estate after the funeral costs and before any bequest or inheritance.

  al-Sirājiyyah (al-Sajāwandī), opening chapter