Death and Islamic Understanding of Afterlife

Arberry, Arthur J. The Koran Interpreted. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1955.

Averroës. The Distinguished Jurist's Primer: A Translation of Bidayat al-Mujtahid. Translated by Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee. 2 vols. Reading, U.K.: Garnet, 1994. A good English-language source for death-related ritual law.

Denny, Frederick Mathewson. An Introduction to Islam. 2nd ed. New York: Macmillan, 1993. Useful treatment of death rituals.

Haneef, Suzanne. What Everyone Should Know about Islam and Muslims. 2nd ed. Chicago: Library of Islam, 1996.

Ibn al-Naqib, Ahmad al-Misri. Reliance of the Traveler: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law: "Umat al salik." Edited and translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller. Rev. ed. Beltsville, Md.: Ammana, 1999. Another good English-language source for death-related ritual law.

al-Nawawi. Gardens of the Righteous: Riyadh as-Salihin of Imam Nawawi. Translated by Muhammad Zafrulla Khan. London: Curson, 1975.

Peters, F. E. A Reader on Classical Islam. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994.

Sells, Michael A., trans. and ed. Early Islamic Mysticism. New York: Paulist Press, 1996.

Smith, Jane Idleman, and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad. The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981. The definitive scholarly study of the topic.