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How to Wash and Bury Someone Who Died From Coronavirus

22 March, 2020
Q Dear scholar, in light of the recent developments of Coronavirus and the increasing number of deaths, how should Muslims wash and bury a Coronavirus dead body?

Answer

Dr. Jasser Auda
22 March, 2020

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. 

All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.

In this fatwa:

1- Dealing with the dead body should have the same precautions as dealing with the same body when it was alive.

2- People who are going to move the body to wash it should move it without touching it by carrying it in the appropriate bag or blanket.

3- During the time of the washing of the body, everybody who is involved in that has to have highly efficient masks and gloves.

4- The washing should be as the normal washing of the body in Islam.

5- The body should be put in a bag that is waterproof and it has to be clearly marked as it has an infectious body.

6- When the body is put in the appropriate box for transfer to the graveyard, the box should never be opened before the exact burial of the body.

7- In the graveyard, the body could be taken out and the burial could be done in the way that is normally done.

8- In Islam, we do not burn bodies and this should not happen for the Coronavirus dead bodies.

Answering your question on how to wash and bury a Coronavirus dead body, Dr. Jasser Auda, Professor and Al-Shatibi Chair of Maqasid Studies at the International Peace College South Africa, states:

According to consultation with medical experts in the field, what follows should be the procedures that Muslims should follow when they deal with a deceased person infected with Coronavirus.

Dealing with the dead body should have the same precautions as dealing with the same body when it was alive. In that sense, people around the body should be isolated in terms of their breath and in terms of touching the body in the same way.

Therefore, people who are going to move the body to wash it should move it without touching it by carrying it in the appropriate bag or blanket that totally closes the air from the body.

Whenwashing the body, everybody who is involved should have highly efficient masks and gloves and a total isolation in terms of their clothes from touching the dead body.

The guidelines of taking off gloves and masks have to be followed properly and the guidelines of washing hands with soap and sanitizers have to be applied in a precise way.

The washing should be as the normal washing of the body in Islam. It is, according to the sunnah, important to wash the dead body once with water and once with soap or a detergent.

Water should not fall on any of the washers’ body and they should all be covered with plastic covers from head to toe including masks.

Then, the body should be put in a waterproof bag and it has to be clearly marked as an infectious body and that people should stay away from the bag by one meter or more according to the instructions of health officials.

When the body is put in the appropriate box for transfer to the graveyard, the box should never be opened before the exact burial of the body. The box shouldn’t be opened before Janazah payer. People should stay away from the box. The janazah prayer has to be performed in the usual way.

In the graveyard itself, the body could be taken out and the burial can be done in the way that is normally done. People who are doing the burial have to wear the appropriate gloves, robes and masks. They have to sanitize and wash very well after the burial. In fact, everyone attending the burial has to wash very well.

In Islam, we do not burn bodies and this should not happen for the Coronavirus dead bodies.

Almighty Allah knows best.

How Should Muslims Wash and Bury a Coronavirus Dead Body? coronavirus victims COVID-19 Fiqh & Fatwas
About Dr. Jasser Auda
Jasser Auda is a Professor and Al-Shatibi Chair of Maqasid Studies at the International Peace College South Africa, the Executive Director of the Maqasid Institute, a global think tank based in London, and a Visiting Professor of Islamic Law at Carleton University in Canada. He is a Founding and Board Member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, Member of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, Fellow of the Islamic Fiqh Academy of India, and General Secretary of Yaqazat Feker, a popular youth organization in Egypt. He has a PhD in the philosophy of Islamic law from University of Wales in the UK, and a PhD in systems analysis from University of Waterloo in Canada. Early in his life, he memorized the Quran and studied Fiqh, Usul and Hadith in the halaqas of Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo. He previously worked as: Founding Director of the Maqasid Center in the Philosophy of Islamic Law in London; Founding Deputy Director of the Center for Islamic Ethics in Doha; professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada, Alexandria University in Egypt, Islamic University of Novi Pazar in Sanjaq, Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies, and the American University of Sharjah. He lectured and trained on Islam, its law, spirituality and ethics in dozens of other universities and organizations around the world. He wrote 25 books in Arabic and English, some of which were translated to 25 languages.