As we all know but often ignore, death is inevitable whatever your cultural background. With the Day of the Dead coming up at the start of November, SharedCity explores the different attitudes to death within our different religious communities. Religions shape many of the rituals and beliefs around death, but you might be surprised at how different traditions are across the four main non-Christian religions when it comes to coping with the end of life as we know it.
1) If you are Jewish...
...you will be buried quickly, usually within a day or two of death and mourners - including friends, family and the wider community - will hold prayers for seven whole days afterwards at the family home. Direct relations (children, siblings and spouse) are expected to mourn for a full year, which means avoiding cheerful celebrations, wearing muted clothes and, for men not cutting their hair or shaving. Mirrors are often covered in the mourners’ home to help mourners focus on the internal grief. There are Jewish cemeteries located on the outskirts of north London, swathes of plain gravestones, on the edge of M25. If you visit a Jewish cemetery, you will notice that Jews do not put flowers on a grave, but instead place a stone on the grave in memory of the deceased. Stones might not be pretty, but they do last longer. |
| Stones placed on a Jewish grave in remembrance |
2) If you are Hindu...
...it is likely that you will be cremated. Traditionally Hindus cremate their dead on a funeral pyre in the open air. In India, many funeral pyres are found along the River Ganges where public cremations take place every day. Close relatives, often the children, of the deceased will light the fire to burn the corpse. Hindus believe in reincarnation and the fire releases the spirit to the next life. In London, open air funeral pyres are a relatively new concept, although Hindus previously used local crematoriums. A court ruling was made in 2010 to allow open air cremations for the first time, allowing Hindus to follow traditional requirements more closely. Wearing black at a funeral is not appropriate for Hindus: most people prefer to wear white clothes. Ten days after the funeral, a ceremony is held at the family home to liberate the soul of the deceased for its ascent into heaven. Many Hindus scatter the ashes of their loved ones in the River Thames, the UK’s second-rate answer to the Ganges.
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| Sticks for building funeral pyres next to the Ganges in India |
3) If you are a Muslim...
...you are likely to believe that death is not the end at all and that the deceased will move on to a better afterlife. After death, close relatives care for the body and soul of the deceased by bathing the body, covering with white cotton, and reciting prayers. The body is usually interred quickly, within a day or two. The family home is open for a day for people to pay respects and mourning continues for 40 days after the death. A spouse will mourn and wear black for a whole year. The Muslim Burial Ground in Horsell Common, just outside London, was the first Muslim burial ground in the UK. Now there are Muslim burial grounds within most public cemeteries as well as specific grounds in Hainault and Waltham Forest.
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| Muslim burial grounds in Hainault |
4) If you are a Sikh, you are likely to see death as a natural part of the human life cycle. A funeral is a celebration of life called 'Antam Sanskaar' and as such crying or wailing at a funeral is not common. After death, Sikhs believe the soul leaves the body in its journey back to God. Sikhs choose cremation and the cremated remains are typically submerged in a river. The whole of the holy scripture is read during the 10 days after death either in the home in in the temple or Gudawara. There are no tombstones or cemeteries for Sikhs as the body itself is never placed below the ground. The corpse is seen as an empty shell. At funerals, the men traditionally wear black headscarves, whereas women tend to wear lighter colours.
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| Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha in Southall, the largest Sikh temple in Europe |
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