How Many Steps Should One Carry the Funeral Bier

Question

When the funeral bier is carried here, there is a practice: four men carry the bier, holding it, and after every ten steps they change shoulders; finally, when, after going round position by position, the first man comes back to his first position — that is, forty steps are completed — then they carry it to the graveyard. What is the basis of this? This is being pressed hard here, and some people are so rigid about it that they quarrel with those who act otherwise; therefore your fatwa is urgently needed.

Answer

Four men should carry the funeral bier, and each bearer should walk forty steps with it. As for making stages of ten steps each — that is not a ruling of the Sacred Law but a newly introduced custom; it should be corrected.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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