A shroud of foreign cloth and the funeral prayer over it

Question

Question: Zayd was a very venerable man, a scholar (‘alim), God-fearing and abstinent; he had long been staying with ‘Amr, and by the decree of Allah he passed away. Zayd’s relations with Bakr were long-standing, old and very cordial; Bakr, too, is a very great scholar of his time and a shaykh al-hadith. On Zayd’s death ‘Amr informed Bakr of Zayd’s passing by telegram, and so, before the preparation [of the body] and the shrouding, Bakr came together with other religious scholars.

Answer

Cloth that is permissible to wear in life is also permissible for a shroud, and cloth that is not permissible to wear in life is also not permissible to put on as a shroud. If there is no impurity in this cotton cloth — in its material and so on — but it is pure, then a shroud of it is also permissible; and if there is something impure in it, then a shroud of it is not…

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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