Hawzah News Agency- Abdulwase Sufian, from Lodge Lane, said his mosque is struggling to cope with the demand for burials with the place of worship’s current facilities. He told the ECHO: “We’ve been ongoing for the past ten years now. There are around 40,000 Muslins, likely more in Liverpool, and most of these come to us for funerals. Families from further afield even come to us. We work with Muslims from Rochdale, Wirral, St Helens and the Sefton ward.
“What we’re seeing now is that we are limited in space. We only have one washroom and one refrigerator where we store the bodies. That's all we have. It’s not a lot at all for the number of Muslims in the area''.
In Islamic tradition, washing a deceased is called Ghusl Mayyit and is a ritualistic cleansing before burial. It involves washing the body with water and soap and shrouding it in white cloth. This practice is a communal obligation, typically performed by other Muslims of the same gender as the deceased.
Abdulwase said Al-Rahma is the only mosque to offer such services in the area. He said: “It’s a right of a Muslim to be buried as soon as we can usually within 24 hours.
“This means we’re having to wake up early and stay late to do all the washing. They can take up to three hours but it really depends on the state of the body. For it to be a full Islamic burial, everything needs to take place. So if the washing doesn’t happen, it can lead to being a sin in the community.
"Right now, we don’t have a dedicated space for funeral services. We don’t have a professional waiting area, a viewing room or an office. So when families are grieving, we have to compromise other rooms in the mosque to accommodate this. It’s a hard situation to navigate''.
Since April 2023, 138 Janazahs or Muslim funerals have been performed at the mosque. But he space is said to be in “urgent need of improvement,” with the facilities overcrowded, lacking privacy and unable to meet the needs of the growing community.
Abdulwase, alongside the Al-Rahma team, is raising funds to transform the facilities. With the total cost teetering over £100,000, he aprpeciates it isn’t going to be easy. You can donate to the campaign here.
The money from the Sadaqah Jariyah will go towards providing the community with a dedicated Ghusl Room for washing the deceased, refrigerated storage with the capacity for four to five bodies and a viewing room for families to see their loved ones.
It will also be used to build a Janazah support office to assist grieving families with an Islamic design to create a respectful, peaceful environment.
Source: Yahoo NEWS
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