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.
Jazakum Llahu Khairan! May you please clarify to the readers the word "caffeine", is it the white cloth we call in arabic "kafan" كفن or caffein a componet in certain drinks like coffee…..? Shukran.
IFS,needs to do more civic education to the community,sensetize them the importance of this organization,what they have done , what they are doing etc.other wise more problems will be there minus this.Sheikh am sure the writer meant "kafan".the only thing these writers need to do when it comes to arabic names should do more reseach or ask some people who know their spellings and meanings to avoid giving wrong interpretation to people who read these articles.
Salam
I'm coming across this issue a bit late. But my quick comment is that traditionally the issues of deaths or funerals are presented with myths. As such even those that are in the committee IFS have not been as open on IFS as they have been on other issues.
I tend to agree with Sheikh Kawinga that IFS needs to do a lot of sensitization and demystfying funerals. Yes death is one of the fundemental pillars of a human being – in one way or the other we will all die. It is for this reason that the community needs to understand that IFS is here to stay for our own good.
We should also remember that we are living in a mixed community, more especially Malawian Muslims – people have come to believe that when a person dies the burial place is home. I think it is with this in mind that IFS is not regarded as an integral part of our society just like other organizations/groupings.
For instance, it is through this forum that I'm being told that we can register. And yet there are many fora where IFS would have been sensitizing people about IFS, its image and its importance on us as Muslims.