The best attested form of Dua al-Janazah asks forgiveness in a series of deliberately paired categories: the living and the dead, those present and those absent, the young and the old, the male and the female among the reciting community, before turning to specific requests for the deceased individually, that God widen their grave, illuminate it, and grant them a home, family and spouse better than the ones left behind. The pairing is not decorative. By naming opposites together, living and dead, present and absent, the supplication frames the prayer as covering the entire community rather than the deceased alone, so that a funeral prayer said over one body becomes, in its own wording, a request made on behalf of everyone gathered and everyone connected to them, living or dead.
This communal framing matters because Salat al-Janazah is understood in Islamic legal thought as an obligation on the community rather than the individual, a fard kifayah that is satisfied once enough worshippers have performed it, rather than a duty every Muslim present must discharge personally. The supplication's own wording mirrors that communal logic: it is not phrased as one person's private petition for one deceased person, but as a plea spoken by a standing congregation on behalf of a community that includes, in the same breath, both those who have died and those who are still living.