What do you do at the grave after a Muslim burial?

In more detail

• Help fill the grave

  After the funeral prayer, the Prophet ﷺ came to the grave and threw three handfuls of earth from the head end. Aḥmad did the same, and said: if one does, it is good, and if not, there is no harm.

  Sunan Ibn Mājah 1565 (ḥasan, Darussalam) · Ibn Qudāmah, al-Mughnī (Ḥanbalī, with the other schools), 2:370–372

• Ask for forgiveness and firmness

  Stand at the grave and ask Allah to forgive them and keep them firm, because they are being questioned at that moment. Aḥmad was asked about standing at the grave after the burial to pray for the one who died, and said: there is no harm in it.

  The duʿāʾ at the grave, with the Arabic

  Sunan Abī Dāwūd 3221 (ṣaḥīḥ, al-Albānī) · Ibn Qudāmah, al-Mughnī (Ḥanbalī), 2:377

• Stay a while

  As he was dying, ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ asked: when you bury me, stay around my grave for as long as it takes to slaughter a camel and share out its meat, so that I may be comforted by you and see what answer I give the messengers of my Lord.

  Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 121

• The reward of staying to the end

  Whoever attends the funeral until the prayer has one qīrāṭ of reward, and whoever stays until the burial has two. Asked what two qīrāṭs are, the Prophet ﷺ said: like two great mountains.

  Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1325

• The talqīn after burial

  In some communities someone stands at the head of the grave and reminds the one who has died of the shahādah. Many Shāfiʿī scholars recommend it; al-Nawawī says the ḥadīth for it, from Abū Umāmah, has a weak chain, and accepts it for encouragement. Ibn Qudāmah found nothing on it from Aḥmad, who said he had seen only the people of Syria do it, though two later Ḥanbalī scholars, al-Qāḍī and Abū al-Khaṭṭāb, recommended it. The schools differ, so ask your imam.

  Al-Nawawī, al-Majmūʿ (Shāfiʿī), 5:303–304 · Ibn Qudāmah, al-Mughnī (Ḥanbalī), 2:377

• Then, the family

  Condolence is best after the burial, in the family’s home, and lasts about three days. Bring food: the Prophet ﷺ said, prepare food for the family of Jaʿfar, for what has happened has occupied them.

  Visiting a grieving family

  Al-Dardīr, al-Sharḥ al-Kabīr, with Ḥāshiyat al-Dasūqī (Mālikī), 1:419 · Sunan Abī Dāwūd 3132 (ḥasan, al-Albānī)