Washing the Body for Burial

Ghusl al-mayyit is the ritual washing of the body of a deceased Muslim, performed before it is shrouded and the funeral prayer said over it. Like the washing of a living person for major purity, it is a full-body ablution, but carried out for the dead by others, generally family members or trained volunteers of the same sex as the deceased, who wash the body an odd number of times, often with water scented with camphor or lote leaves, then dry and shroud it in plain white cloth.

The washers work with modesty, keeping the body covered, and treat it with the respect due to a person; the martyr fallen in battle is, by a well-known ruling, an exception buried without this washing. The practice sits within the broader Islamic law of purity, and the jurists devoted careful attention to its order and details, so that the care of the dead is governed by the same concern for ritual cleanliness that shapes the worship of the living.