A Muslim Funeral

Dear Suleyman,

I am so sorry to hear what your own dear father had to go through at the end of his life.  Don't blame yourself for forgetting the day of his death.  I'm sure your father wouldn't want you to feel badly.

Yesterday was my father's funeral.  It was very beautiful.  I am exhausted and can't quite believe he is really gone (though I do know he is).  I sometimes laugh, feel sad, cry, and now I just feel very numb.  I guess these are normal feelings.  One thing I do know it he is at peace, and he is not being tortured by the cancer anymore.  He is in Heaven with Allah/God!!  I do KNOW that!!

You said there is a saying in the Qur'an, something about to Allah we must return, I believe.  We have a similar saying, which means we came from dust and to dust we will return "ashes to ashes, dust to dust", and we also believe we will all return to God in the end.  This is so true, and it is why we must be certain to live our lives as we KNOW God/Allah COMMANDS us to live.  "TO LOVE OUR NEIGHBORS AS OURSELF".  That was not just some "suggestion" God/Allah told us....He COMMANDED us to do this.  Are we following his commands today?  I wonder about that a lot.  For this reason I cannot hate another person.  I can hate what they are doing perhaps, but I cannot hate the person.

Please pray for me.

Peace to you.

As Salamu Alaykum,Sister,i don't think that any  of a user  here knows the cancer pain on a body more than me,you are right to feel on that feelings and i am the witness what my father did in his last months looking at to the roof calling them with their hands for taking his soul,i very well understand you but understanding is not enough for him,time to do more things...

For example,do you use morphine stickers on his body,these stickers are so expensive but here in Turkey if you convince the doctors they write to the government and they cost the price from their budgets,you can reach to them in one day, not a big deal for you,you know you have some important friends from the army...these sitckers are so important for them, you know from the old type of cancer threatments that they were using morphines with syringes and making addictions on the body that after a time period the morphine pain were turning on prior to the cancer pain,very bad old days... 

Just three stickers for three days at the same time on his chest,then he leaves the pain and begins to watching tv or eating his meal from his own hands,deep breath it gives,i praise to Allah for this instrument and thank to the doctors who found these amazing stickers...

Note:these stickers do not make addiction onto the body,just gives morphine from his skin in a smooth way that only cancer cells feel what are they about...of course not a final solution just a way of helping the person on his great war....i have some more tips if you need i am always here...peace... 

Dear Suleyman, Supreme, and Angela,

Thank you so much for your kind words.  I so much appreciate all your prayers.  I try to pray, but now I have a hard time even getting any words out.  Most of the time I just ask God to please grant my Father mercy and "take him home to Heaven"....then his suffering will be over and he will know peace again.  Sometimes I wonder if it's wrong to ask God to take him, and then I feel guilty.  But I cannot stand thinking about his suffering.  For him to finally die will be an act of mercy.  For me to want him to stay here on earth would be selfish of me.  Does that make sense to any of you?

God's Peace.

You already have useful replies sis, so I just add a little.

The only people who view funeral as everything were the old egyptian. They spent their entire life for funeral. This practice is forbidden in Islam just like decorating the house of worships. In simple word maybe we can say, we came into this world - simple, we live in here - simple, we depart from here - simple.

There are only three things that continue the contact with the dead, and these three things are the determining factors. The deeds he did while he/she was living here, the knowledge (good or bad) he/she passed on to other people, and the children (good or bad).