The fact is that there are two types of acts of goodness One type relates to the relationship of man with Allah and his obligations to his Lord, his Creator, that is Allah and the other division pertains to man’s responsibilities to his human fellow beings and to other beings, other than Allah So in the first instance, in the first category that responsibility can be discharged only by the person himself because it has direct bearing on the development of his soul and if he dies, then anybody else’s performance of that duty does not add to anything of Allah’s pleasure and does not serve any purpose it’s meaningless but those acts which pertain to the service to mankind or other creation if they are performed, or even if they are performed after the death of a person they don’t lose meaning they still are meaningful and they serve a purpose and a good purpose for that matter so not only they are not forbidden, they are encouraged so this is why we don’t find a single instance in traditions of the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him where he ever asked or admonished anyone to start saying Holy Quran, reciting Holy Quran or saying prayers for the sake of the dead people the dead relatives or friends.
But this is on record more than once for example, once a companion of Muhammad, peace be upon him came to him and said my mother was very generous and very service minded she used to spend on the poor now that she is dead I want to continue to do that service to mankind on her behalf will that be alright? Hazrat, peace be upon him said, yes do it, and Allah conveys certain acts of people here to the souls of those who have passed away so there are so many other references to the same subject in various ways so that is established and the reason is because Allah’s creation will get benefit out of that but that is a meaningless thing the person who was in fact to draw the benefit is no longer there the direction of benefit is completely different in the first instance the benefit was to flow from Allah to that person who was to be the performer of a good deed and to him alone in the second instance the benefit flows not from Allah directly but from one of his servants to the rest of his servants so the recipients of benefits are there alright
