Can janazah salah be performed without wudu?

Dear Brother / Sister,

All fard, wajib, sunnah and mustahab salahs including janazah salah can only be performed after performing wudu. If there is no water, or if there are some obstacles that prevent using it, tayammum is performed and this is regarded as a spiritual cleaning meaning wudu.

“Janaza salah is a dua rather than a salah, and so it can be performed without wudu.” If there are some people uttering the previous statement, they do not understand that salah is a prayer and a dhikr from start to finish.

The religion that orders its followers to perform five daily obligatory salahs by performing ruku and sajdah, orders them to perform janazah salah without performing ruku and sajdah. However, it calls both of them salah and wants wudu for both of them.

The general conditions for the validity of prayers are also valid for janazah prayer. Therefore, the majority of Sunni fiqh scholars regards it necessary to have wudu for the janazah prayer to be valid. Only one Sunni fiqh scholars called Sha'bi does not find it necessary to have wudu for janazah prayer. According to this approach, since there is no ruku’ (bowing down) and sajdah (prostration) in janazah prayer, it is better to call it dua. (see Ibn Rushd, Bidayatul-Mujtahid, 1/194) Similarly, Jafari madhhab does not find the conditions of cleanliness of hadath and najasah and the other conditions necessary for janazah prayer; however, it is more appropriate in terms of caution to observe all of the conditions of prayer in janazah prayer.  

If a person does not have wudu and if he fears that he will miss janazah prayer, he can make tayammum and perform janazah prayer according to Hanafi madhhab; however, according to the other three Sunni madhhabs, janazah prayer cannot be performed with tayammum.

Under the light of this information, the view "janazah prayer can be performed without wudu" is not an acceptable view in terms of Sunnis. Janazah prayer is basically a dua for the dead person but it needs to be performed with the same seriousness and conditions of validity as the other prayers. If a person does not have wudu, he can either make tayammum, which is symbolically like wudu and ghusl, quickly or can wait aside when there are other people performing janazah prayer since it is fard al-kifayah.

(Vecdi AKYÜZ)

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