ﻡﻳﺣﺭﻠﺍﻥﻣﺣﺮﻟﺍﷲﺍﻡﺳﺒ 

Alhamdolillah, during the last few years, Muslims living throughout the United States have taken great strides in becoming independent in many aspects of their religious lives.  Community owned local masjids which have five times prayers, fulltime and part time (weekends and evenings) schools which offer Islamic education and environment, Islamic financing, and a whole array of Muslim businesses are testimonies of American-Muslim advancements.  But one subject in which we are still deficient in, and dependent on the nonmuslims for, is in the care of our deceased.  But, Alhamdolillah, by the grace of Allah, some brothers in the Chicago area have recently taken some measures to give our community more independence in this area also.  That’s why I wanted to take this opportunity to personally inform you and your local community about the launching of a new, yet much needed project in the Chicago area:  Muslim Funeral Services.

Currently, many masjids have contracts with local funeral homes and cemeteries to provide services to them in case of a death in the community; and many Muslims may also already have bought plots in “Muslim Cemeteries”.  But the sad reality is that when a death does occur in our area, even though many masjids may also have a local brother or sister designated from within the community to assist the deceased’s family through this difficult time (by helping wash the body, or help make burial arrangements, etc) but by not having a funeral director who is adequately familiar with the Islamic way of life, certain circumstances have historically arisen which, instead of consoling the grieving family, have rather caused added sorrow and tension, not only for the mournful family members, but also for the community at large.  For example:  Men coming to the house or hospital to pick up the body of a female Muslima; people coming in with shoes on to places in the house where shoes are not normally worn; funeral directors encouraging families to buy fancy, expensive caskets or grave liners even when they don’t want to; funeral directors pushing families to embalm the dead body instead of just washing it (even though there is no legal requirement to do so); and being charged exorbitant prices for a simple Islamic burial.

            As a permanent measure to stop such complaints, and give Muslim families better services during their time of grief and, in general, to give Muslim-Americans more control over decisions dealing with death and dying, the elders of our community saw the need to have someone from within our population obtain the appropriate education and licenses and then, specifically cater to the needs of our brothers and sisters and serve our families at this time of sorrow.  Being a lifelong resident of the Chicago area, and seeing the difficulty Muslims living in the United States have faced throughout the years in this field, I heeded the advice of our elders and took it upon myself to try to fulfill this demand.  Now, Alhamdolillah, with the blessing of Allah, and the duas of the elders, I have completed all requirements to pursue this project and am now a qualified, licensed funeral director ready to address the needs of our communities.

During the time I was going through the laborious task of satisfying all legalities I was given advice by some people about the best way to use this certification for the benefit of as many people as possible.    One suggestion was that, due to the sheer distance and time involved in the whole procedure, rather than opening only one facility to try to satisfy the Islamic death needs of the whole Metro-Chicago area and then expect all local Muslims to go out of their way to avail of its services, it would probably be more appropriate to open multiple facilities dispersed throughout Chicagoland (city and suburbs, North & South, East & West) to accommodate the various ethnicities, cultural disparities, and clusters of remote populations spread throughout northeastern Illinois.  Another suggestion was to avoid the current practice of coming and going to three different places for the three most distinct functions of the Janaaza process (washing body, Janaaza prayer, and burial) and rather have only one central place, and have it in a cemetery, so that it could serve as an all-purpose location which would function not only as a place to bury our deceased but also to wash his/her body for the ghusl, and a place to conduct the Janaaza prayer.  Doing this would not only save time for the families and the community, but it would also be safer because it would allow us to terminate the sometimes dangerous habit of having long processions in busy streets which have sometimes been known to cause accidents and traffic problems.

There were other suggestions worthy of consideration.  That’s why we thought it would be better to take some extra time now and consult the whole community and plan properly, before starting and investing our time, energy, and finances into an arrangement which could have been better prepared.  For this reason, we are asking for your help and are now contacting you to get some suggestions and feedback concerning your community’s experience with funeral homes and cemeteries.  By using this information we would like to, Inshallah, provide better service for not only the members of your local Masjid but for all the Muslims living in the tristate area.  Thus, we would humbly request that you please take a few minutes of your valuable time to complete and return the accompanying survey.  Inshallah, we should have our website setup soon at www.MuslimFuneralServices.com to share some of this information with you and keep the whole community updated on the progress of this project and stay connected to each other about this important issue. 

I look forward to receiving your responses and hearing from you soon.  If I can be of any service to you or your community by coming and talking to your community (informally or with a power point presentation, or a whole day, half-day, or weekend workshop type session, etc) about this venture or any other related topic (For example:  the stages of preparation before death, the Janaaza prayer, the method of putting on the Muslim kuffin (shroud), the method of a proper Islamic burial, etc) please feel free to contact me and we can set up a time which is mutually beneficial.  Inshallah, I hope we can work together to please Allah and make the Chicago area a model Muslim community for all of the United States. 

            I would personally like to thank you for the time you have devoted not only for this effort but for all worth while projects.  May Allah reward you for your continued hard work to bring Dean into your life and into the lives of others.  By taking part in efforts such as this to establish permanent institutions for the service of our community we will not only be making it easier for the next generation to practice Islam, but also be creating a means of Sadaqa Jaariya for ourselves in the grave and in the life hereafter.  Please make dua for the success of this endeavor and, as always, for the betterment of the ummat.

Jazakumullahu Khairan Ahsanal Jazaa:

Your brother in Islam,

Haroon Firdausi