Islamic Funeral Services (IFS) has bemoaned Muslims response towards the activities of the organisation which aim at rendering assistance during funeral services.
Publicity secretary for IFS Noordin Kaondo made the remark during an exclusive interview with the Malawi’s official website.
IFS which started offering funeral services such as transport arrangement, bathing of the dead, provision of kafan two years ago has so far no any registered member to benefit its services.
”A couple of months ago we had about a hundred registered members but as of now we have no member in our registration book, apart from the 16 committee members that run the organisation.” Kaondo said.
IFS is in a pilot project targeting only Muslims residing in Blantyre city.
Kaondo attributed the negative response to the services of his organisation due to what he described as’ lack of attractiveness of funeral related services’.
”Issues of funeral services are quite different from that of dawah and education. People normally tend not to take the funeral seriously a thing, which is very unfortunate because as Muslims, we should remember that whether we like it or not, death will come to us, as such we need to get prepared since we never know that one of our family members may demise when we are in economic problems,” he said.
Registration
The spokesperson for the only Islamic organisation offering funeral services in Malawi said registration is based on a household level.
”A family which has a maximum of 10 members is required to pay k3,000 (about $20) per annum upon paying an additional 3 hundred kwacha in the first year.
”Therefore you can see that we have at least managed to put the registration fee at a fair price in order to incorporate all Muslims regardless of their economic position since IFS is not a business oriented institution.”
Benefits
With the amount paid, a family is entitled to benefit services from the IFS of transportation to the graveyard within Blantyre, bathing of the dead body, provision of kafan, Janaza and funeral service coordination.
