Unfortunately, in recent years, this subject has sparked a lot of debate and heated debate among Muslims. It is increasingly normal to see Muslims shunning other Muslims over the matter, expressing enmity against them, or even labeling them as deviants as a result! However, Islam forbids such bigotry and intolerance, and the shari’ah does not sanction it.
An impartial examination of the topic indicates that classical jurists disagreed on whether or not the benefits of Quranic recitation might be “donated” or “given” to the departed (known as isal al-thawab or ihda al-thawab). One set of academics believes it can be donated and that the deceased would profit from it, whereas the other believes it cannot.
The vast majority of jurists agree that such a gift reaches the departed and that they gain from it. ‘Any act of worship a person conducts, presenting the reward of it to a departed Muslim, the deceased would profit from it; God willing,’ Ibn Qudamah al-Maqdisi declared in his highly famous al-Mughni, typifying the popular position. Now, when it comes to supplication, seeking pardon, and providing charity [for others], or activities that can be performed on someone else’s behalf, I’m not aware of any distinction in their permissibility.
He goes on to offer a few genuine hadiths that unequivocally prove that some acts of devotion performed by the living can reach and benefit the departed. These are the acts:
‘In these sound hadiths is evidence that the deceased gains by any act of devotion,’ Ibn Qudamah wrote after quoting the aforementioned hadiths. Fasting, travel, and supplicating are all corporeal acts of devotion, and God has granted their blessings to the departed.