Message #14354

[Heba E. Husseyn]

Yeah sis, isn't it really creepy and weird?  Furthermore I don't know how one can even think of photographs when one loses a loved one .... or for that matter, at anyone's death.  Such ideas basically arise when people don't have Faith in the Hereafter and they think this worldly connection is all they have, so they try to hold on to the dead to show earthly links for as long as they can.

...... In the Western society, it's always been about saving money.  Even today, the culture of cremation that has arisen in the West is for the purpose of saving money because burial costs more.  

I would like to clarify one more point on this.  It's the Christian burial in the West that are costly which requires a chain of formalities according to the rules of funeral homes.  They plan a funeral ceremony like a party .... booking the room at the funeral home, visitation timings, receiving visitors on the day of the funeral, sometimes serving them with refreshments, grooming the body with make-up and fine clothes, often calling a band to play the lament, and not to mention the huge cost of the wooden coffin itself.  Different coffins are made of different kinds of expensive wood costing thousands of dollars. 

Unlike all this, the Muslim burial only requires a shroud and bathing the body which can be done by any males in case the deceased is a man or by any females in case the deceased is a woman.  And according to Muslim culture, funerals are arranged from home, no need for funeral homes. 

The piece of land acquired for the grave in the cemetery should be given at a very nominal rate for every burial.  But unfortunately, because greed for money has gotten the better of the human heart, in all burials they try to charge as much as they can for that smallest piece of land needed to bury the human remains.  That's sorrowful too