Imamate of the Washer of the Deceased

Question

Nowadays the washing of the dead usually falls to the imams of mosques, and a certain respected scholar says that prayer behind one who washes the dead is not permissible at all. If it is not permissible [what then], since village imams are kept precisely for this, and if they do not wash the dead they are removed from the imamate? Please write in detail.

Answer

Washing, shrouding, the funeral prayer and burial of the deceased all have the same ruling; so it is in “al-Durr al-Mukhtar”. It would follow [by his reasoning] that prayer should not be permissible behind anyone who does any one of these tasks, and that the dead should simply be left lying without washing, shroud, prayer or burial, since prayer behind whoever does these…

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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