Voices of Islam (162 page)
Authors: Vincent J. Cornell
After the funerary prayers were over, the husband of the deceased woman was sad but relieved to be able to return to Canada, where he would join with his family and that of his wife to observe the bereavement warranted by such a tragedy. On the way back to the Islamic Center, I remembered how neigh- bors and extended family members would take over the household of the family of the deceased. They would provide a fried Moroccan bread called
milwi
and hot tea for the large numbers of people, whether friends, acquaint- ances, or enemies, that would come from all over to present their condolen- ces. During this time, enmities would be forgotten and the event would create an opportunity for people to make peace among each other. The family also used this time to take care of the legal matters associated with the loss of a loved one.
On the third day after the funeral, the family would observe two important rituals. Early in the morning they would visit the grave and give
milwi
soaked in butter, dates, and water to those who accompanied them to the cemetery and to anyone they met on the way. At the cemetery, they would recite some verses of the Qur’an or hire someone who had memorized the Qur’an to recite verses on behalf of the deceased. At night, they would prepare a huge and costly meal and invite the community to come and celebrate the memory of the deceased. Neighbors, extended family members, friends, and even strangers would help with the cooking and with the meal expenses. Such a communal event brings people together to care for each other in a very compassionate way. Humor, but without vulgarity, is often used at such events to bring solace to the family of the deceased.
On the fortieth day after the funeral, family members and friends pay another visit to the family of the deceased. As on the third day, a feast is held and Qur’an reciters are hired. When my father died, I was in the United States and could not be present on time to attend his funeral.
Death and Burial in Islam
169
To commemorate his death, the Islamic Center held a funerary prayer for him and people shared their own experiences of coping with distance and loss far away from their communities back home. In place of my family in Morocco, I relied on my friends from Los Angeles and the Islamic Center, who cooked for my family and me and brought me comfort and sympathy.
Life in America has taught me much, but none of the lessons I have learned have been as significant as the lessons I learned when dealing with death in a faraway land. I was amazed to see how much tradition mattered to my fellow Muslims who had lost loved ones in their home countries. No matter how secular they might be in their daily lives, and regardless of their religious incli- nation or ethnicity within Islam—whether Iranian Shiite, American Sufi, or North African Sunni—when they faced the loss of a loved one, they all wanted the rituals to be performed according to the strict observance of the Qur’an, Sunna, and tradition. My experience of working in the Islamic Center of Southern California taught me that the majority of Muslims in the United States take religion most seriously at three crossroads in their lives: at marriage, childbirth, and death. At such times, even people who make a point of being ‘‘modern’’ and rational in their day-to-day occupations fall back on the support and solace of tradition. When I see modern Muslim ideologues attempting to reform Islam by dismissing traditional practices as ‘‘superstitious’’ or ‘‘ignorant,’’ I wonder what they will rely on when death and tragedy overtake them. The ‘‘human margin’’ of religion can be both a curse and a blessing. Sometimes, tradition can create its own tragedies, such as when a modern Anglo-Pakistani executive marries off his daughter, who has never been to Pakistan, to an unknown man from his native village in Punjab. However, at other times, such as moments of death and loss, the lack of tradition creates an emptiness and sterility that leaves the heart desolate and bereft of solace. As this chapter has shown, I am grateful for the traditions I have learned from many people in my native town and region, both literate and illiterate. What continues to amaze me is how much these traditions not only resonate with but also follow the teachings of Islam as they have unfolded throughout history.
NOTES
The Qur’an says about martyrs, ‘‘And say not of those who are slain in the way of Allah, ‘They are dead.’ Nay, they are living, although you do not perceive it’’ (2:154).
In a hadith, the Prophet Muhammad says, ‘‘Oh God, please help me bear the delirium of death.’’ See, for example, Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (d. 505/ 1111),
Ihya’ ‘ulum al-din
(Beirut: Dar al-Ma‘rifa, n.d.), vol. 4, 461–465.Anas ibn Malik reported that the Prophet Muhammad said: ‘‘One must not die unless he holds positive thoughts about God. Verily, trusting in Allah’s goodness is the Price of Heaven.’’ Shams al-Din ibn Abi ‘Abdallah Muhammad al-Qurtubi
170
Voices of Life: Family, Home, and Society(d. 671/1272–3),
Al-Tadhkira fi ahwal al-mawta wa umur al-akhira,
ed., Muhammad ‘Abd al-Salam Ibrahim (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1421/2000), vol. 1, 27.‘‘And there will come forth every soul; with each will be [an angel] to drive it, and [an angel] to bear witness for it’’ (Qur’an 50:21). See also,
The Message of the Qur’an,
transl. and annot. Muhammad Asad, 2nd ed. ( Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus, 1984), 798. Asad interprets the ‘‘driver’’ (
sa’iq
) and the ‘‘witness’’ (
shahid
) in this verse as not meaning angels, but psychological constructs: ‘‘And every human being will come forward with [his erstwhile] inner urges and [his] conscious mind’’ (n. 13 and n. 14).Shams al-Din Abu Bakr Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 701/1301–2),
al-Ruh,ed., al-Dimashqi (Amman, Jordan: Maktabat Dandis, 2001), 69.
This fourth stage in the creation of the human being is distinguished by God’s spirit being breathed into humankind. ‘‘Then [God] fashioned [the human being] and breathed His Spirit into him’’ (Qur’an 32:9). ‘‘They ask you about the Spirit. Say: ‘The Spirit comes from God’s command’’’ (17:85).
Sleep, in Moroccan culture, is said to be the ‘‘little brother’’ of death. I remember my mother referring to death and saying that death had ‘‘a foolish little brother’’ called sleep, who never gets to finish the job he starts.
‘‘You shall surely ascend from one heaven to another heaven’’ (Qur’an 84:19); also, ‘‘[God] who has created the seven heavens one above another’’ (Qur’an 67:3).
Qurtubi,
al-Tadhkira,
vol. 1, 50. 10. Ibid., 50–51.
‘‘Near the Lote-Tree beyond which none may pass’’ (Qur’an 53:14).
‘‘For those who reject Our signs and treat them with arrogance, no opening will there be of the gates of heaven, nor will they enter the Garden, until a camel can pass through the eye of the needle. Such is Our reward for those in sin’’ (Qur’an 7:40).
‘‘If anyone assigns partners to God, he is as if he had fallen from heaven and been snatched up by birds, or the wind had swooped and thrown him into a far- distant place’’ (Qur’an 22:31). A fierce blast of wind, the wrath of God, comes and snatches the soul away and throws it into a place far from anywhere one could imag- ine, into the Hell of those who defy God. See Asad,
The Message of the Qur’an,
859 n. 2806.Qurtubi,
al-Tadhkira,
vol. 1, 26; this hadith comes from the collections of Abu Dawud and Tirmidhi.Al-Ghurur
is a term that the Qur’an uses to describe the multilayered self- deception of the person who is involved with the particularities of the material world and who forgets about the realities of the Hereafter. See Fazlur Rahman,
Major Themes of the Qur’an
(Minneapolis, Minnesota and Chicago, Illinois: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1980), 107.The literal meaning of the Arabic word
dunya
is ‘‘that which is very near,’’ in other words, an immediate objective, the ‘‘here and now’’ of life.
Al-Akhira,
on the other hand, means, ‘‘that which comes at the end,’’ the long-range results of the human being’s life on earth.Death and Burial in Islam
171The Qur’an refers to such people as ‘‘those for whom neither trade nor com- merce can divert them form the remembrance [of Allah]’’ (24:37).
This tradition goes back in time to medieval Islam. See Jane Idleman Smith and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad,
The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection
(Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1981), 39.Qur’an 37:20–21; on Judgment Day, our limbs and faculties will be the strongest witnesses against us if we use them for evil purposes instead of the good purposes for which they were given to us. ‘‘On the Day when their tongues, their hands, and their feet will bear witness against them and their actions’’ (24:24).
Smith and Haddad,
Death and Resurrection,
78–79.‘‘Speak but spin!’’ is a Moroccan aphorism that connotes doing multiple tasks at once, and it is used in many contexts outside of the home. In the present case, my mother used it as a reminder to follow the story, but stay focused on the task. It is equivalent to the American saying, ‘‘Walk, and chew gum at the same time.’’
The most common Qur’anic Suras that are recited when washing bodies for burial are Sura 13 (
al-Ra‘d,
The Thunder) and Sura 36 (
YaSin,
the Arabic letters Y and S).In the United States and Europe, Islamic organizations have taken it upon themselves to provide handbooks for the preparation and burial of the Muslim dead. One such handbook is the
Islamic Funeral Handbook
(1991), produced by the Muslim community of Chicago, Illinois. Many people cooperated in the preparation of this handbook, including local Imams, attorneys, funeral directors, and representa- tives of the Chicago Board of Health.See, for example,
Sahih Muslim,
trans. Abdul Hamid Siddiqi (New Delhi, India: Kitab Bhavan, 1978), vol. 2, 446.
25. Ibid., 447.
R
EFLECTIONS ON
D
EATH AND
L
OSS
•
Feisal Abdul Rauf
Great and important insights can be gained by understanding how those of another faith handle the experience of death. This chapter consists of two spontaneous refl that were sent to the friends of the late Muhammad Abdul Rauf, a great Egyptian scholar and Imam, by his son Feisal and daughter-in-law, Daisy, bringing many to tears by the intimacy and dignity of the account. In a second letter of thanks for the condolences that the family received, the terrible tsunami disaster of December 2004 had just occurred in Indonesia and the Indian Ocean, and the Muslim reaction to this calamity is also expressed.
—Virginia Gray Henry–Blakemore, Volume Editor
A BEAUTIFUL END TO A LIFE’S JOURNEY
Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji‘un.