PARTING OF WAYS

Sunday, 1 November 1192 AD

-Nablus

In the afternoon after Zuhr prayers. In one of the homes in the neighborhood, a funeral procession was walking out of the courtyard with male relatives carrying a dead body wrapped in kafan cloth on their shoulders. The sound of female mourners trying to hold back their tears and sobs was as well as others speaking in low voices in their groups.

Kulusumu Anifa the female physician was one of these mourners. She stood in the courtyard of their family home as she watched the male relatives taking away the body of her mother for burial in the cemetery some distance away.

In her heart, she wanted to escort her mother and give her a final send-off on this last journey of her earthly life, but it was not allowed for women in Islam to visit graves or attend the burial of their departed. This pained her but she had nothing to do, this practice was there before she was born.