When the Spirit Leaves: Childhood Death, Grieving, and Bereavement in Islam

Abstract

The death of a child has a profound and often long-lasting impact on families. The parent's relationship and their ability to bond with and take care of surviving children may be affected. It is important for healthcare workers to understand the dynamics associated with bereavement, especially when the family comes from a non-Western culture. Islam is one of the three most populous religions along with Christianity and Hinduism and the fastest growing religion in the United States but remains largely misunderstood. This paper seeks to explain what Islam is, who is a Muslim, where they live, and what they believe and practice. It also explains how Islamic beliefs contextualize the meaning of life and death for Muslims and how they are exhorted to grieve upon a child's death. Reading this paper will enable those who care for Muslim families to better attend to the social and emotional needs of Muslim parents and siblings after such a tragic event.

Factors influencing the utilization of maternal health care services by nomads in Sudan

“…Findings from a study by Serizawa et al (2014) show that the perceived health needs of women in rural Sudan are strongly influenced by religion and beliefs. Sudanese women are like other Muslim women elsewhere in the world, with fatalistic beliefs with regard to health and well-being (Serizawa et al 2014;Hedayat 2006). Interestingly, Sudanese women perceive ANC as a curative rather than a preventive measure (Serizawa et al 2014;Furuta and Mori 2008).…”

Exploring the Effectiveness of Mandatory Premarital Screening and Genetic Counselling Programmes for β-Thalassaemia in the Middle East: A Scoping Review

“…Scholars from the 4 Sunni and the Shiite schools agree that abortion may be performed to save the mother's life, but they disagree over the status of the foetus before 4 months of gestation. While Muslim scholars have differing opinions on abortion, all have agreed that the human ‘spirit' enters the body at 4 months of gestation (120 days), at which point the foetus is ‘another creation' according to Islamic metaphysics (Qur'an 23:14) and abortion is forbidden unless the life of the mother is threatened [16]. In 1990, the Islamic Jurisprudence Council of the World Islamic League in Mecca issued a fatwa (Islamic legal ruling) allowing for select termination of pregnancies if a committee of physicians determined that the foetus was severely malformed and its birth would have seriously negative effects on itself and its family [3].…”

“…Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Guinea) and 3 in the Middle East (i.e. Iran, Kuwait and Qatar) [16]. In countries where abortion for foetal impairment is illegal (i.e.…”

Cultural Construction of Psychiatric Illness in Malaysia

“…Rather than openly expressing their feelings, the authors claimed that Malays use cultural proverbs or idioms to denote the benefits of sorrow or adversity, such as "Adversity makes one a better person", "The more sorrow one encounters, the more joy one can contain" and "After falling, the ladder falls upon you", to describe the phenomenon of one bad thing happening after another, or a feeling that all bad things seem to happen at the same time; similarly, people speak of "an unlucky person who has been having an unlucky streak". Such suppressions of emotional expression are said to be associated with the Islamic values that teach followers how to handle grief and death, whereby people are not expected to cry excessively and should express emotion in moderation (11).…”