Reward for patience with losing young child
Fatwa No: 328660

Question

Assalaamu alaykum. I had a delivery last month and the baby was normal when we went for sonography, but when the baby was delivered, she passed away after spending 5-10 hours on earth. Inna lillaahi wa inna ilayhi raaji'oon (To Allaah we belong and to Him we shall return). Due to some complication, the uterus was also removed by the doctor while operating. My questions are the following:
1) Will the baby take both the mother and father to heaven when we die?
2) Will our other two children who are with us also be taken to heaven with us, and will we stay as a family of five?
3) Does the baby remember the mother and father currently in heaven or is it too busy playing with prophet Ibraaheem (Abraham), may Allaah exalt his mention, and the children there?
4) Does the accidental removal of the uterus during the operation provide a benefit for the Hereafter as no more babies can be born now?
May Allaah reward you. I await your earliest reply.

Answer

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

First of all, please accept our condolences for the loss of your daughter, and may Allaah bless you with what is better than her. If a person is afflicted and is patient and says, ‘Inna lillaahi wa inna ilayhi raaji'oon’ (Surely, we belong to Allaah and to Him shall we return); and asked Allaah to grant him something better in place of what he lost, then Allaah will surely grant this to them.

Umm Salamah said, “I heard the Prophet say, 'There is no Muslim who suffers some calamity and says what Allaah has commanded him (to say), Surely we belong to Allaah and to Him shall we return. O Allaah, reward me for my affliction and give me something better than it), except that Allaah will give him something better than it.'” [Muslim]

For more benefit, please refer to fatwa 83577.

We hope that your daughter will be a reason for you and her father to enter Paradise. Imaam Ahmad narrated that a man used to come to the Prophet with his son. The Prophet asked him: “Do you love him?” He (the man) said, “O Messenger of Allaah, May Allaah love you in the same manner that I love him.” After a while, the Prophet missed the child and asked about him, “What happened to the son of so-and-so?” They replied, “O Prophet of Allaah, he died.” Thereupon, the Prophet told his father, “Would you not like to come to any of the Gates of Paradise and find him waiting for you?” The man asked, “O Messenger of Allaah, is this peculiar to me and my son, or is it for all of us (all Muslims).” The Prophet said, “Rather, it is for all of you (for the whole Muslim nation).” For more benefit, please refer to fatwa 121840.

Secondly, by the grace of Allaah and His generosity and graciousness, if the people of the same house die upon faith, then Allaah will gather them all together in Paradise. Allaah will make those lower in degree reach those upper in degree in Paradise. Allaah says (what means): {And those who believed and whose descendants followed them in faith - We will join with them their descendants, and We will not deprive them of anything of their deeds. Every person, for what he earned, is retained.} [Quran 52:21]

Ibn Katheer says in his Tafseer about the interpretation of the above verse:

In this verse, Allaah the Exalted affirms His favor, generosity, graciousness, compassion and beneficence towards His creation. When the offspring of the righteous believers imitate their parents in faith, Allaah will elevate the latter to the ranks of the former, even though the latter did not perform deeds as goodly as their parents. Allaah will comfort the eyes of the parents by seeing their offspring elevated to their grades. Surely, Allaah will gather them together in the best manner, and He will not decrease the reward or the grades of those higher in rank in order to join them together, hence His statement, {And those who believed and whose descendants followed them in faith - We will join with them their descendants.}” 

Thirdly: the Hereafter is a matter of the unseen, nothing can be authoritatively asserted about it except if there is evidence about it. We are not aware of any evidence that shows that your daughter, after her death, could remember her father and her mother. It should also be noted that the hadeeth that you mentioned and that says that there are children around Ibraaheem (Abraham) was reported by Al-Bukhari and others, but the hadeeth does not mention that they will be playing with Ibraaheem. The hadeeth in Saheeh Al-Bukhari reads, “The tall man in the garden is Ibraaheem and the children around him are those children who died upon the Fitrah (the natural predisposition of believing in One God).”

Allaah knows best.

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