The Ṣalāt al-Janāzah, Islamic funeral prayer proceedings, for Dr. Abdul Majeed Abdul Bari, who passed away in Sri Lanka while recieving treatment for a stroke is to be held on Wednesday.

While the absentee prayer itself will be conducted in the Maldives on Wednesday night, funeral proceedings for him are ongoing at the ‘Muslim cemetery’ in Jawatta, Sri Lanka. He is to be laid to rest after Luhr, or afternoon, prayers.

Majeed’s family has asked ‘as many Maldivians’ as possible to participate in the proceedings that will be held after Isha, or night, prayers in capital city Malé.

The former minister, who was also the first chief of the state-run Fiqh Committee, suffered a sudden stroke and was flown to Sri Lanka for treatment last Friday. His health deteriorated drastically and was breathing through a ventilator during the days before his death on Tuesday.

Majeed was the first Maldivian to earn a doctorate in Quranic Tafseer, a branch of Islamic academia that has to do with intepretation of religious texts, and one of the country’s most trusted scholars.

At the time of his death, Majeed had been a senior lecturer at the national university and the president of the opposition Adhaalath Party’s ‘scholars council’.