Prayer 🙏🏻 for the🙏🏾 Dead

Prayer for the Dead

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Religions with the belief in a future judgment or a resurrection of the dead or of purgatory often offer prayers on behalf of the dead to God 

Bahá'í Faith

The Bahá'í Faith believes the soul continues to progress toward God in the afterlife. In fact the Bahá'í definition of heaven and hell are nearness and distance from God respectively. The belief is that souls can be aided in their progress by the saying of prayers for the departed. Here is a sample of one such prayer:  

O my God! O Thou forgiver of sins, bestower of gifts, dispeller of afflictions!
Verily, I beseech thee to forgive the sins of such as have abandoned the physical garment and have ascended to the spiritual world.
O my Lord! Purify them from trespasses, dispel their sorrows, and change their darkness into light. Cause them to enter the garden of happiness, cleanse them with the most pure water, and grant them to behold Thy splendors on the loftiest mount. 
 - ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

The Prayer for the Dead is a particular prayer for the departed said at Bahá'í funerals before internment

Buddhism

Along reading Buddhist sutras such as Sutra of The Great Vows of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, Amitabha Sutra or Diamond Sutra, Ritsu offer refuge, Pure Land Buddhists nianfo or chant Pure Land Rebirth Dhāraṇī and Tibetan Buddhists chant Om mani padme hum repeatedly. Prayers such as Namo Ratnasikhin Tathagata are for animals.

Christianity - New Testament

A passage in the New Testament which may refer to a prayer for the dead is found in 2 Timothy 1:16-18, which reads as follows:

"May the Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain, but when he was in Rome, he sought me diligently, and found me (the Lord grant to him to find the Lord's mercy on that day); and in how many things he served at Ephesus, you know very well."

As with the verses from 2 Maccabees, these verses refer to prayers that will help the deceased "on that day" (perhaps Judgement Day, see also end times). It is not stated that Onesiphorus, for whom Saint Paul prayed, was dead, though some scholars infer this, based on the way Paul only refers to him in the past tense, and prays for present blessings on his household, but for him only "on that day". And towards the end of the same letter, in 2 Timothy 4:19, Paul sends greetings to "Prisca and Aquila, and the house of Onesiphorus", distinguishing the situation of Onesiphorus from that of the still living Prisca and Aquila. 

Prayer For The Dead

Tradition

Prayer for the dead is well documented within early Christianity, both among prominent Church Fathers and the Christian community in general. In Eastern Orthodoxy Christians pray for "such souls as have departed with faith, but without having had time to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance". In the Catholic Church the assistance that the dead receive by prayer on their behalf is linked with the process of purification known as purgatory.^[15][16] While prayer for the dead continues in both these traditions and in those of Oriental Orthodoxy and of the Assyrian Church of the East, many Protestant groups reject the practice.

The tomb of the Christian Abercius of Hieropolis in Phrygia (latter part of the 2nd century) bears the inscription: "Let every friend who observes this pray for me", i.e. Abercius, who throughout speaks in the first person.

The inscriptions in the Roman catacombs bear similar witness to the practice, by the occurrence of such phrases as:

• Mayst thou live among the saints (3rd century);
• May God refresh the soul of . . . ;
• Peace be with them.

Among Church writers Tertullian († 230) is the first to mention prayers for the dead: "The widow who does not pray for her dead husband has as good as divorced him". This passage occurs in one of his later writings, dating from the beginning of the 3rd century. Subsequent writers similarly make mention of the practice as prevalent, not as unlawful or even disputed (until Arius challenged it towards the end of the 4th century). The most famous instance is Saint Augustine's prayer for his mother, Monica, at the end of the 9th book of his Confessions, written around 398.

An important element in the Christian liturgies both East and West consisted of the diptychs, or lists of names of living and dead commemorated at the Eucharist. To be inserted in these lists was a confirmation of one's orthodoxy, and out of the practice grew the official canonization of saints; on the other hand, removal of a name was a condemnation.

In the middle of the 3rd century, St. Cyprian enjoining that there should be no oblation or public prayer made for a deceased layman who had broken the Church's rule by appointing a cleric trustee under his will: "He ought not to be named in the priests prayer who has done his best to detain the clergy from the altar."

Although it is not possible, as a rule, to name dates for the exact words used in the ancient liturgies, yet the universal occurrence of these diptychs and of definite prayers for the dead in all parts of the Christian Church, East and West, in the 4th and 5th centuries shows how primitive such prayers were. The language used in the prayers for the departed is asking for rest and freedom from pain and sorrow. A passage from the Liturgy of St James reads:

Remember, O Lord, the God of Spirits and of all Flesh, those whom we have remembered and those whom we have not remembered, men of the true faith, from righteous Abel unto to-day; do thou thyself give them rest there in the land of the living, in thy kingdom, in the delight of Paradise, in the bosom of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, our holy fathers, from whence pain and sorrow and sighing have fled away, where the light of thy countenance visiteth them and always shineth upon them.

Public prayers were only offered for those who were believed to have died as faithful members of the Church. But Saint Perpetua, who was martyred in 202, believed herself to have been encouraged in a vision to pray for her brother, who had died in his eighth year, almost certainly unbaptized; and a later vision assured her that her prayer was answered and he had been translated from punishment. St. Augustine thought it needful to point out that the narrative was not canonical Scripture, and contended that the child had perhaps been baptized.

Judaism - Main article: Yizkor

Prayers for the dead form part of the Jewish services. The prayers offered on behalf of the deceased consist of: Recitation of Psalms; Reciting a thrice daily communal prayer in Aramaic which is known as Kaddish. Kaddish actually means "Sanctification" (or "Prayer of Making Holy") which is a prayer "In Praise of God"; or other special remembrances known as Yizkor; and also a Hazkara which is said either on the annual commemoration known as the Yahrzeit as well on Jewish holidays.

The form in use in England contains the following passage: "Have mercy upon him; pardon all his transgressions ... Shelter his soul in the shadow of Thy wings. Make known to him the path of life."

El Maleh Rachamim is the actual Jewish prayer for the dead, although less well known than the Mourner's Kaddish. While the Kaddish does not mention death but rather affirms the steadfast faith of the mourners in God's goodness, El Maleh Rachamim is a prayer for the rest of the departed. There are various translations for the original Hebrew which vary significantly. One version reads: 

God, filled with mercy, dwelling in the heavens' heights, bring proper rest beneath the wings of your Shechinah, amid the ranks of the holy and the pure, illuminating like the brilliance of the skies the souls of our beloved and our blameless who went to their eternal place of rest. May You who are the source of mercy shelter them beneath Your wings eternally, and bind their souls among the living, that they may rest in peace. And let us say: Amen.

 

A record of Jewish prayer and offering of sacrifice for the dead at the time of the Maccabees is seen being referred to in 2 Maccabees, a book written in Greek, which, though not accepted as part of the Jewish Bible, is regarded as canonical by Eastern Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church: 

But under the tunic of each of the dead they found amulets sacred to the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jews to wear. So it was clear to all that this was why these men had been slain. They all therefore praised the ways of the Lord, the just judge who brings to light the things that are hidden. Turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out. The noble Judas warned the soldiers to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen. He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view; for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin.

Jacques Le Goff, French historian and agnostic, concluded, "at the time of Judas Maccabeus-around 170 B.C., a surprisingly innovative period- prayer for the dead was not practiced, but that a century later it was practiced by certain Jews.”

This extract does not explain on what grounds Le Goff argued that prayer for the dead was not in use in the first half of the 2nd century BC. The account of the action of Judas Maccabaeus was written midway through the second half of the same century, in about 124 B.C., and in the view of Philip Schaff its mention of prayer for the dead "seems to imply habit".

How to Say the Mourners Kaddish

The Jewish Prayer of Mourning

Hinduism 

In Hinduism there are funeral speeches with prayers for the dead. Many of these funeral speeches are read out from the Mahabharata, usually in Sanskrit. Family members will pray around the body as soon as possible after death. People try to avoid touching the corpse as it is considered polluting. 

Islam -See also: Islamic funeral

In Islam, Muslims of their community gather to their collective prayers for the forgiveness of the dead, a prayer is recited and this prayer is known as the Salat al-Janazah (Janazah prayer).

The Janazah prayer is as follows:

like Eid prayer, the Janazah prayer incorporates an additional (four) Takbirs, the Arabic name for the phrase Allahu Akbar, but there is no Ruku' (bowing) and Sujud (prostrating).

Supplication for the deceased and mankind is recited.

In extraordinary circumstances, the prayer can be postponed and prayed at a later time as was done in the Battle of Uhud.

Dogma states it is obligatory for every Muslim adult male to perform the funeral prayer upon the death of any Muslim, but the dogma embraces the practical in that it qualifies, when Janazah is performed by the few it alleviates that obligation for all.

In addition, "Peace be upon him" (sometimes abbreviated in writing as PBUH) is a constantly repeated prayer for dead people such as Mohammed. 

Dua for the Deceased

Taoism

Taoists chant Qinghuahao (青華誥) or Jiukujing (救苦經).

Other religions

• Many spiritual traditions have prayers for the dead as part of their liturgy, whether these prayers are salutational, to welcome the spirits of the deceased, or to remember their names.
• African Traditional and Diasporic traditions often have incorporated ancestral veneration practices. In orisha based traditions, the mojuba is the praise chant which praises Olodumare, the orishas, the religious lineage, the blood lineage of ancestors, and the various other beings of the universe.
• Zoroastrians chant prayers for the dead in their funeral ceremonies, asking God to forgive the deceased.

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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_for_the_dead