Calligraphy by Hassan Massoudy, an Iraqi artist based in Paris
by Omid Safi, Religion News Service, April 22, 2011
On Thursday, I went to the funeral of a 16-year old angel.
This was not a child, faceless and nameless, that you see buried in a newspaper. This was a child born to a family that I adore, a family whose whole lives has been spent in service to humanity. I was there when this angel came home from the hospital, and I used to babysit her when her mother, a leading scholar of Islamic studies, was finishing her PhD.
This was a child that every one of her teachers called the single most brilliant, creative, and inspiring child they had ever taught.
We put her body in the ground, the machines lowered a cement block on top of the coffin, and each of us scattered a handful of dirt, a rose, and tears, on her grave. Her adopted aunts and uncles sat by the graveside, and recited Qur’an verses to keep her soul company on the journey back to God.
We wept as few of us have ever wept before. We have not stopped crying. This is the kind of weeping that taps into a shattering of a heart.
High school kids with tattoos and dyed hair wept. Those of us who are parents wept for this child, for this family, confronting what is every parent’s absolute worst nightmare. Teachers wept.
Her mother stood up before us, beginning in the name of God, and catching her breath several times as she spoke through tears, softly and clearly. She thanked God for the gift of this beautiful child, for each one of the 16 years. She acknowledged that each of us felt that parents should not bury their own children, but we are not given any guarantees. She said gracefully that while she “strongly disagrees†with God’s plan to call her angel home, she abides in faith and is grateful.
I am a scholar of religion. Pondering these large questions of life—and sadly, death—is what I do, what I am supposed to do. I have looked into my own tradition, Islam, as well as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and others, to find some semblance of explanation, of meaning. Continue reading First words since…..burying a 16-year old angel →