Hiring (ijara) for isal al-thawab

Question

A person in whose [family] a death occurs gathers three or four religious scholars and seats them at the grave of the deceased [on the condition]: “For so many days you must be present at the grave day and night and recite the Qur’an; in return you will be given bread and such-and-such a sum.” What is the ruling on this in the Shari‘a? In Ma La Budda Minhu, p.

Answer

No reward comes from such recitation of the Qur’an — neither to the reciters nor to the deceased, because money and bread are taken and given as compensation for the recitation; that is, those who take and those who give commit a sin, as is stated explicitly in Radd al-Muhtar, vol. 5, in the Book of Hire (Kitab al-Ijara)

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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