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Fatwa CenterBuried or not, man is questioned and experiences torment or bliss
Question
Is the dead person who is placed in the morgue refrigerator for many months before burial questioned in this place or is his questioning delayed until after his burial?
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, sallallaahu 'alyhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
Please note that the dead person is questioned upon his death regardless of whether he is buried or not; put in a grave or morgue refrigerator, or in any other place. The prominent scholar Muhammad As-Saffaareeni 
mentioned that the unburied dead, such as someone who is crucified, is inevitably questioned and experiences the constriction of the grave. Likewise, the erudite scholar, Ibn Al-Qayyim mentioned that it should be known that the punishment of the grave is that of Barzakh (the intervening stage between death and resurrection). He added that every person who dies and deserves to be punished would be punished, regardless of whether or not he is buried. This is the case, even if he was eaten by carnivorous animals, burned to ashes, blown into the air or drowned in the sea -- both his soul and body would experience punishment in the same way as that of the buried person.
Perhaps, dear brother, you are wondering how this dead person is questioned or tortured in the morgue refrigerator. The answer is that questioning such matters is beyond our imagination and only Allaah The Almighty Alone, the Omniscient, the Wise, knows it.
What we are required to do in this regard, is to believe and submit. Ibn Abi Al-‘Izz said that both the torment of the grave and its bliss and the questions of the two angels to the dead person after death have been proven in many Hadeeths in a way that is established with full certainty.
Therefore, it is obligatory to believe in this aspect of the Unseen and not to ask ‘how’ because this is beyond the perception of our limited minds and there are no Sharee'ah (Islamic law) texts that describe it.
Allaah Knows best.
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