The knife's edge: Muslim burial in the diaspora

This paper concerns Islamic answers to death and burial in Berlin. Alfred Schütz (1972) once described the difficulties an individual faces when approaching a foreign group in order to become accepted as one of them. According to Schütz, the ambivalence of transition necessitates pragmatic action. Religious leaders from Sunni mosque organizations as well as non-religious experts (an undertaker, a lawyer) in Berlin were asked how they handle death and burial in a non-Islamic country. The singing of dirges and the taking of photographs during burial were selected to analyse the religious decisions involved. The reconsideration of religious certainties illuminates the ambivalence with which communities in migration face their new surroundings. Some religious leaders will make room for new expressions, thus widening the possibilities of individual and collective readjusting. Others, wishing to protect their community from foreign influences, try to denude the burial ritual of all non-Islamic elements, thus forbidding symbolic attempts to bridge the gap between one's actual life and one's past. The paper will show that the pragmatic solutions of the undertaker turn him into a mediator between concrete demands and theological reflexion, and thus between acculturation and ethnicity.