of the grave."

Muhammad said: The root of the word "al-dank" in the language is narrowness and severity. It is said: "danuka 'ayshuhu dank-an wa danak-an." They said regarding [the verse] "a depressed life [ma'ishatan dankan]": i.e., a severe one.

Yahya narrated from Abu Umayya, from Yunus ibn Khabbab, from al-Minhal ibn 'Amr, from Zadhan, from al-Bara' ibn 'Azib: "The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) followed the funeral of a man from the Ansar. When he reached his grave, he found that the lahd (niche) had not yet been prepared. So he sat down, and we sat around him as if birds were on our heads. He had a stick in his hand with which he was poking the ground. Then he raised his head and said: 'O Allah, I seek refuge in You from the punishment of the grave,' repeating it three times. 'Verily, when the believer is at the end of this world and the beginning of the Hereafter, angels come to him whose faces are like the sun, with his embalming perfume and his shroud, and they sit in a place where he can see them. When his soul departs, every angel between the heaven and the earth and every angel in the heavens prays for him, and the gates of heaven are opened; there is no gate among them but that it longs for his soul to ascend through it. Then the angel reaches his Lord and says: O Lord,'