British Asians and the Grand Trunk Road – Funerals
Relatives at Ghamkol Sharif Central
Mosque in Birmingham waiting to
transport body of deceased to Mirpur for
burial. ©Tim Smith
Mourners in Killial near Mirpur offering
prayers at the funeral of a man whose
body is flown back from Britain. ©Tim
Smith
They have two funeral prayers nowadays. The first one is read there, then the body is sent over
in a coffin, the English people phone us in the village that a body is coming. Someone goes to
the airport with a wagon to receive a body, then all the families are told here, they gather and
we have another ceremony here. There are funeral services in England now that can arrange all
the paperwork and running around at that end.
In Islam we are told that the moment a person dies, he should be buried as soon as possible,
and that wherever a person dies, he should be buried there. Now people have actually made it
a matter of prestige. They think that if you shift a dead body from England to Mirpur, people
will say, ‘Oh, his son, his brother, or his wife, they have done a great thing, they are good
people, they have brought back the body.’ But actually I am not in favour of it. It is more a
show of wealth or affluence than religious rites or other human considerations. When a person
dies, he dies, he is dead! It’s an extravagance!
We feel very sorry about the gentleman who is buried over in England, that he could not be
buried in his own soil. We feel for him. He kept on working very hard, he created wealth for his
family, but the family ignored him at the time of his death and buried him over there.
Resource provided by www.mylearning.org © Irna Qureshi & Tim Smith, Bradford Libraries