Status Updates From What the Living Can Do for ...

On the issue of Isal al-Thawab (donating rewards to the deceased) , the author has done well to illustrate the difference of opinion on this issue. This allows for a more nuanced and tolerated understanding of such potentially delicate issues.

Useful section describing some of the things to do when a person is dying, and immediately after death e.g. washing, shrouding, funeral prayers and burying the dead. The author has taken the approach to discuss various points of Islamic Jurisprudence through the prospective of the four Sunni schools; this approach is elective rather than strictly comparative.

The authors summation of the concept of Bidah - may actually plunge some people further into confusion, than actually clarifying matters. Thus, the discussion could have been better presented.

The soul's journey after death - described. Punishment of the grave and it's interrogation is real. Save yourself, through correct belief, multiple good deeds fulfilled with the upmost sincerity.

Allahumma ahyini ma kanat al-hayatu khayral-li wa tawaffani idha kanat al-wafatu khayral-li - "O Allah! Give me life so long as that life will be good for me, and take away my life if death is good for me."

The inevitability of death; the purpose of life -life the incongruous field for being tested, to see who proves "true". Living your life according to this inevitable reality -as though a wayfarer! Intelligence is defined as preparing for death and what comes after it - ignorance being a state of oblivious heedlessness. So purify your souls for the Last Day, remember the destroyer of pleasures towards a life of Taqwa.

The author's introduction has set the tone for the book (a rather negative one) - the books stated aim is to be a counter-corrective to cultural inquisitions into religious funerary rites and practices.