‘Tokunbo’ Corpses
Historians never agreed on when and where the first human couple, Adam and Hawau (Eve), died. Some claimed that they died and were buried in India. Others believed that they
Historians never agreed on when and where the first human couple, Adam and Hawau (Eve), died. Some claimed that they died and were buried in India. Others believed that they lived and died in the Gulf area of the Middle East. According to the latter’s account, which Muslims tend to believe, Adam and Hawau met at a place near Makkah called Arafah which later became the general assembly center of Muslim Pilgrims. The account suggested that they lived partly in the valley of Makkah and partly in Jeddah after their expulsion from the paradise.
The duo, Adam and Hawau, were said to have left the paradise separately following their expulsion only to meet later at Arafah (which means recognition) after a long period of wondering. Their sojourn in that region of the world shows that the Middle East was the first place of human settlement. Hawau was believed to have died and interned in Jeddah, which is why the place was so named. Jeddah is an Arabic word meaning Grandmother.
Neither Adam nor his wife Hawau knew anything called death until one of their first two sons killed the other. The two sons: Habil and Qabil (Abel and Cain) had clashed over the choice of a wife. The tussle led to the killing of Habil by Qabil. But the focus here is neither on the cause of their clash nor the killing of one by the other. Rather, it is on the lesson which Allah wanted to teach humanity through that episode.
Shortly after killing his brother, Qabil fell into a dilemma over what to do with the corpse. He was not worried as much by his conscience over his crime as what would become of the corpse. But while thinking on what to do, two birds of the Roller family appeared before him and started fighting each other and in no time, one killed the other. The strange scene attracted the attention of Qabil like a tragic drama. He watched the incident with full attention as the killer bird used its legs to dig a grave-like hole, pushed the corpse of its vanquished partner into it and covered it up. From that wonderful scene, Qabil got the idea of what to do with the corpse of his brother. And he buried him. Thus, the lesson was learnt that this being created from the earth would eventually return to the earth.
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What Qabil did not know at that time, however, was that the two birds, which became the teachers of man, were Angels. And the lesson learnt from their experience was not just about death and burial but also about when and where to bury a human corpse. If Allah had wanted ceremony and expenses to be lavished on burial, the killer bird would have demonstrated same in the drama. Qabil did not move the corpse of Habil to any other place for burial because his bird teachers did not do that. Like the killer bird, he also buried his brother at the very spot where the latter breathed his last.
In Islam, death is supposed to be the determinant of where the demised should be buried. It takes life at a particular time and place according to its own natural schedule of duty. It gives no hint of the exact time and place to strike. And, after striking, it does not anticipate the transfer of a corpse across any major distance. That is why the body of the demised start to decompose just hours after it becomes lifeless. To confirm this, the Quran chapter 31: 24 says: “No soul knows what it will do tomorrow. No soul knows where it will die”.
The first group of the Makkah people who embraced Islam at inception suffered severe victimization in the hands of pagans so much that they had to emigrate to Abyssinia (Now Ethiopia) for safety. While there, a number of them died with their wives and children becoming widows and orphans respectively. All those who died in Abyssinia were buried in that country. Another group of the earliest Muslims emigrated to Taif. A number of them also died there leaving widows, widowers and orphans behind. Their bodies were not transferred back to Makkah for burial. Some unbelievers may argue that those emigrants were fugitives who had no courage to bring back corpses for burial. But what of those who died in the battle of Badr in which Makkah pagans came from a distance of about 650 kilometers away to engage the Muslims in a war? The corpses of the Muslims who died in the imposed war were buried there and then despite the Muslims’ victory in that battle?
It should be remembered that one of the most painful deaths to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was that of his uncle Hamzah, the great warrior who fell to the spear of a Makkan pagan in the battle of Uhd and was buried right there at the foot of mountain Uhd in Madinah where the battle took place. In fact, no one who died in another town or country among the Muslims was ever brought back to his original home for burial. Not even the corpse of the Prophet or that of any of his disciples who died in Madina was returned to Makkah for burial. The reason for this is to avoid the transfer of bitterness and mental agony arising from the death of a person from one place to another. Not only that, it is also to avoid the unnecessary strain and expenses which such transfer can unleash on some people. That was why great disciples like Abubakr, Umar bn Khattab, Uthman bn Affan had to be buried in Madina where they died rather than Makkah where they were born. Also, Alli bn Abi Talib and Mu’awiyah bn Abi Sufyan were buried in Iraq and Syria respectively where they served as caliphs and died. Even Hussain, the grand son of the Prophet and 72 others who were massacred by the forces of Yazid bn Mu’awiyah at Karbalau in Iraq had to be buried where they were massacred despite the nobility of their pedigree.
In Islam, death, like birth has no propensity for any display of aristocracy. And, ascribing one to it is a sign of ignorance and primitivity. Islam abhors extravagancy in whatever form and it admonishes against it. That is why the great religion does not take kindly to commercial exhibition of covings and ostentatious funerals. These are actually prohibited in Islam. Covings can be used to convey corpses from a place to the cemetery but such covings must not be ornamentally decorated. Neither must the Muslim corpses be extravagantly shrouded for burial.
The idea of keeping the corpse in a morgue for a long time after death, to allow for ostentatious funeral and extravagant spending in a society where poverty is manifest, is an act of callousness. Neither the expensive shroud nor the ornamented coving with which the corpse is buried has any benefit to the soul of the deceased. It is sheer wastage, which has no use even for the relatives of the deceased. That idea, which is rampant, especially in some parts of Nigeria today, is not different from cremation done by the Buddhists, the Hindus and others with fanfare in the Far East. Both are a product of ignorance and vain glory.
As usual, Nigerians do not copy anything negative without surpassing the original. Fraud and narcotics as well as terrorism are some examples. The fashion now in vogue in Nigeria is for any public official or private moneybag to travel abroad for medical treatment at the slightest feeling of an ailment. It is as if Nigerian money is outlawed from providing the best hospital here in Nigeria. The concept is to separate the rich from the poor since an exclusive hospital for the rich will sound illogical in a country with overwhelming paupers. Even when some of those sick travelers will be treated abroad by their fellow Nigerians, they do not see anything wrong in spending their ill-gotten money in other people’s land to the detriment of their home country. They seem to enjoy being flown back home lifeless if only to display aristocratic affluence in death. Thus, your death is not considered newsworthy unless your corpse is flown into the country via Muritala Muhammad airport, Lagos or Nnamdi Azikiwe airport, Abuja for public display. Yet no lesson is learnt that even Murtala Muhammad and Nnamdi Azikwe died here in Nigeria. Can anybody cite a clear difference between death in Europe or America and the one in Nigeria? Why must our money be audaciously stolen alive in Nigeria and be brazenly spent in death abroad? With the huge amount of money spent by Nigerian sick travelers on treatments abroad and on flying their corpses back home, one can understand why Nigerians are so wretched that their lives are not worth more than a dollar per head per day despite the billions of dollars accruing to the country from our oil wells. It is necessary to thank God however, that though ‘Tokunbo’ products dumped in Nigeria daily are uncountable, the human corpses amongst them are those of the aristocrats and not of the innocent indigent class.
Death is a leveler of mankind. It does not distinguish between the poor and the rich. We shall all die willy-nilly and we shall all be buried in the belly of the mother same earth where the bones of sworn enemies may struggle together for space. The earth in America or China or Australia is not different from that of Nigeria or Saudi Arabia or Italy. And no earth is superior to another except with Allah’s conferment of sacredness.
Were the aristocrats privileged to calve out a separate portion of the earth for themselves they would have restricted the masses to a disadvantaged area of the earth. But the thinking of man is different from the planning of Allah. Celebration of funerals so flamboyantly as often exhibited in Nigeria is nothing more than celebration of vanity which fetches the celebrator no profit. In Islam caring for the dead at the expense of the living is a glaring evidence of ignorance which no civilized people should pursue.
