Sunnah of digging for burial janaza

Answer:

Sunnah of digging for burial janaza

In the name of Allah, We praise Him, seek His help and ask for His forgiveness. Whoever Allah guides none can misguide, and whoever He allows to fall astray, none can guide them aright. We bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but Allah Alone, and we bear witness that Muhammad (saws) is His slave-servant and the seal of His Messengers.

There are basically two types of graves which can be dug to bury the believers, and although the scholars and jurists in Islam consider all of them to be permissible, the most preferred type is the horizontal ‘bagli’ or ‘lahd’ type.

1. Vertically dug pit where the body is laid, and then covered directly by sand. Or alternatively, a vertically dug grave where the body is laid, then some slabs of stone or a seeming partition is laid on top of the body and then covered by sand….generally known as the ‘shaqq’ type.
2. Vertically dug grave where a horizontal crevice is dug and the body is laid in the horizontal crevice of the grave….generally known as the ‘lahd’ type.

Fiqh-us-Sunnah Fiqh 4.62b

Hadrat Anas ibn Malik (r.a.) reported: "When the Prophet (saws) died, there were two grave diggers. One usually dug the ‘lahd’ and the other a regular ‘shaqq’ type of grave. The companions counseled amongst each other and decided: 'Let us seek Guidance from our Lord.' Then they asked each of them to dig a grave, and decided the grave of the one who finished first be chosen for the burial of the Prophet's (saws) remains. The one who dug the ‘lahd’ finished first, so they buried the remains of the Prophet (saws) in a ‘lahd’ grave."

Related by Ahmad and Ibn Maajah.

It is evident from the above quoted hadith that both the ‘lahd’ and the ‘shaqq’ graves are permissible.