(Zaman Al Wasl)- With the help of protective suits, masks and gloves, and the most precautionary measures, the 13-year-old Libyan child, Ismail Abdul Wahab, who hails from Brixton State, south of London, was buried.
Abdul Wahab was one the youngest people to die of Coronavirus worldwide. His mother and his six siblings remain in their home, attending the funeral from their mobile phones through a live broadcast that was photographed by a relative, since most of them are put under quarantine.
Nearly 1,800,000 people have now been confirmed with the coronavirus globally, and while at least 412,000 people have recovered from COVID-19, more than 110,000 have died, including 20,000 in Italy, according to data from the World Metres.
In Italy, the refugees are not allowed to transfer the bodies of their dead to their countries following the request of the dead or his relatives, as was customary. However, due to the lack of Islamic graves in all Italian cities, the Muslim community requested the official authorities in the country to address this issue.
Yassin Al-Yafii, who works as a cultural mediator and imam in the city of Piacenza, said there are dozens of bodies still in hospitals because of air and sea transport being stopped and prevented from carrying out their normal function; not all of them were Coronavirus victims.
There are difficulties encountered by Muslims specifically since pandemic has spread, including those related to burial rituals like washing and shrouding the dead, and praying and burying the dead in light of what has become known as social distancing, said Al-Yafeai.
The religious institutions in Europe dealt with the current situation with harmony, and with the decisions of the authorities and the words of the expert doctors regarding the transmission of infection and the precautions needed to prevent it; these institutions decided not to wash the dead and to use ‘tayammum’ instead, using gloves of course, and finally they decided the corpse to be shrouded, buried and prayed for from afar.
Al-Yafea regained the privilege of Islamic cultural customs of preparing the dead before the Coronavirus epidemic, as hospitals provided rooms for the washers in which they washed the bodies, and then shroud them in the legitimate Islamic shroud; there are people who are buried in Muslim cemeteries across Italy and there are many bodies whose bodies are returned to their countries too.
Donations are collected for this purpose, and some people decide to pay insurance for this specific purpose; if they die, insurance will transfer them to their countries. Now, however, in light of the difficulty and unavailability of flights, as well as maritime transport, transporting the bodies has become almost impossible.
Under these circumstances, the Federation of Islamic Organizations put pressure on the state to provide graves for Muslims in every city, and this request was met in most cities in Italy, pointing out that these graves may be an independent piece of land or may be part of a Christian cemetery in general; given the breadth of these Christian cemeteries, it can be possible to integrate Muslim bodies in them, and this is exactly what is happening now.
Al-Yafeai also revealed that he had buried three Syrian refugee doctors Abdul Sattar Ayroud, Abdul Ghani Makki and Iyad Al Daqar in the city of Buchens, in which they used to reside.
By Faris Refai
Zaman Al Wasl
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