Let’s Talk About…Burials

On Saturday 16^th May, MEND Manchester invited Atif Hamid, trustee at City Jamia Masjid in Manchester to come and speak to our audience about the how Islamic Burials have changed in light of the current global pandemic.

Atif Hamid, an engineer by day, has been working alongside other mosques in Manchester to help coordinate the burials of deceased Muslims in the Manchester area. During the webinar, he spoke about his experience in this capacity and provided his own perspective on the situation. Atif spoke about how the experience in Manchester differed to that in London, mainly due to the virus spreading outside of London on a delayed timeframe. The one issue the team found was getting access to PPE, due to the costs associated with it. To resolve this, a call for donations was put out. Atif spoke about the tremendous support from the Muslim community and how they rallied around the cause, allowing them to purchase the PPE required to go through the burial process in a safe manner, in line with the government guidelines.

Atif spoke about how the ghusl, kafn (shrouding), paying last respects and the Janazah process has changed over the last few months. Ghusl is now being done only by trained volunteers, meaning that members of the deceased’s family are no longer able to be involved in this process. Although, this can be very difficult for families, this is something that is necessary in order to ensure that the spread of coronavirus. An interesting piece of information given provided by Atif was regarding a face mask also being placed on the deceased to ensure that volunteers were safeguarded throughout the entire process. Limits have been placed on the number of people who are allowed to view the body to pay their last respects. During the Janazah salah, only a select number of family are able to attend and placing three handfuls of soil is the extent to how involved they can be with the burial.

Atif spoke about how this was a difficult time for all and the precautions had been put into place to help safeguard everyone involved in the burial process. Many thanks to Haroon for hosting the session and for conversing with Atif on this matter. A very successful webinar and the feedback from the attendees reflected this.

The Let’s Talk About… project is one pioneered by the MEND Manchester Working Group and is part of their action against the impact of Coronavirus. We hope that this endeavour can bring people some comfort during this period and provide them with the knowledge and support that will make this period in history easier for them.

Our next session, on Saturday 13^th June, will be looking at the changes to palliative care. Keep an eye on our social media and website for more details.