When a loved one dies, most of us turn to a funeral home or crematorium to take care of the body. In the Islamic tradition, it’s different. Family members often help wash and bury their bodies within 24 hours. But first, you have to learn how to do it.
WFAE’s Tasnim Shamma attended a body-washing class and filed this report.
A sheet is wrapped around a female dummy to demonstrate the washing and shrouding process for a Muslim burial at the Islamic Society of Greater Charlotte.
Welcome to the Islamic Society of Greater Charlotte’s washing room.
The walls are white, there are metal tables ready for bodies and it smells kind of like moth balls. And if you’re a Muslim in Charlotte, your body is almost guaranteed to pass through this room.
The washing room at the Islamic Society of Greater Charlotte is located in the back corner of a multipurpose hall next to the mosque. The hall includes an indoor basketball court where tournaments, funeral prayers, weddings and carnivals are held back to back. Volunteers organize the white sheets they will need to wrap around the body after the wash.
It wasn’t always that way. Local Muslim bodies used to be taken to local funeral homes to be washed. But Zainab Ahmed says they weren’t always culturally sensitive.
“The thing I did not like was the man was handling the Muslim sister without any clothes,” Ahmed says. “So that was very painful for me to see. And since then, I would tell the community members here, those on the board, it is a must. It is necessary. We have to have a washing place.”
Three years ago, she got her wish. And today, Ahmed teaches Muslims how to wash bodies.
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