In Egypt and Syria, many can no longer afford to die

RISING COSTS MAKE IT INCREASINGLY DIFFICULT TO HOLD TRADITIONAL FUNERAL SERVICES

BY RAMADAN AL SHERBINI, SAMI MOUBAYED

aving just turned 83, Abdul Fattah Mahmoud, an Egyptian pensioner, has one thing to worry about: Funeral costs.

“I have been saving money for some years in order to buy a tomb for me and my wife,” said the childless man. “But last week, a real estate broker shocked me when he told me that the price of the cheapest tomb reaches 50,000 [Egyptian] pounds [Dh10,204]. This is too much. Death seems to have become more expensive than before!

“I have to save a lot more so that we’ll have a decent burial place and leave behind enough money to pay for our funerals,” Mahmoud told

Gulf News. “People are barely making enough money to live, but now they can’t even afford to die.”

In November last year, Egypt free-floated the local pound as part of tough austerity measures to reform the ailing economy. Economists applauded the step that triggered hikes in prices of different goods and services, including those of funerals.

Price tags of tombs are no exception. They have gone up by more than 20 per cent as a result, according to Tawfiq Hashim, a contractor for tomb construction. “I have been in this business for about 25 years. The prices have never increased like this before. Since the pound flotation, prices of construction materials and land have soared like everything else.”

The 52-year-old entrepreneur puts prices of a single tomb at 50,000 to 500,000 pounds, depending on the size and location.

Egyptians typically observe age-old traditions which require spending a lot of money when someone dies.

The body has to be prepared by a hired specialist for burial according to the Sharia.

In rural and working-class areas, a local resident usually volunteers to do the job for free.

The family of the deceased usually rents a community service building to receive condolences. A Quran reciter is also hired to read some verses from the holy book for the congregation.

Mourning ceremony

Coffee and other hot drinks are served to the guests for which a tea boy is often hired. The cost of the mourning ceremony ranges from 4,000 to 25,000 Egyptian pounds depending on the types of services requested, according to market observers.

“Having no stable job and with my father already dead, I couldn’t arrange a respectable funeral for my mother,” a young man told Gulf News. “I borrowed some chairs and a tape recorder for playing Quran recitation from my neighbours. With this, I held a small ceremony to receive condolences over her death,” added the man, who preferred not to be named for fear of social disgrace.

“I even sought assistance from people at the mosque in my district, who provided a shroud and a coffin for free for my mother’s burial,” he added. “The poor continue to suffer in life and death. Anyway, God judges us by our deeds, not by our funeral processions.”

In Syria, the situation is exponentially worse.

The cost of living has become unbearable for most in Damascus amid high inflation coupled with the devaluation of the Syrian currency caused by nearly six years of civil war. But now, residents are saying that they cannot even afford to die. The price of a grave in Damascus has quadrupled due to high inflation.

In total, the average funeral costs $1,000 (Dh3,670) or 500,000 Syrian pounds which is nine times higher than the average wage of a public sector employee.

Price of a grave

The price of a grave at the Dahdah cemetery costs from 600,000 to one million Syrian pounds ($1,200-$2,000) whereas on the other end of the social spectrum in Najha, a less attractive location behind the Damascus International Airport, it stands at 12,000 Syrian pounds ($25).

Both are state-owned areas; one reserved for the Damascene upper class and middle class notable personalities, the second for the less fortunate or the thousands of newcomers who have come to the capital in recent years, escaping violence in their cities and towns.

But given that the average income of a middle class family

An Egyptian man

is 50,000-100,000 Syrian pounds ($100-$200) and blue-collar workers make only 25,000-30,000 Syrian pounds ($50-$60) monthly, even burying someone in Najha is costly.

Ramez Al Nouri, a resident of the Shaalan neighbourhood who works at a pharmaceuticals company in Damascus, told Gulf News: “It’s not just the price of graves; everything associated with death has become very expensive in this city.” This starts from the Muslim rituals of cleansing the body and wrapping it in a shroud, all the way through to buying a grave and holding the condolence service.

Condolence visits

He added: “We don’t hold condolence services at our homes like we used to do in the past, because of the difficulty of parking and the shortage of electricity and heating fuel. People prefer to rent halls for the three-day service, as observed by Muslim tradition.”

The usual venues in Damascus are either specially designated halls at mosques or ballrooms that serve funerals by day and weddings at night.

Due to the shortage of such venues, people rent out unusual space at places like the Doctor’s Syndicate on Abu Rummaneh Street, for example, an upscale quarter of the city, for anywhere between $100-$150 per day.

“It used to be cheaper but even these venues are charging high prices because it costs a lot to provide running water and electricity, more than double what it used to be six years ago,” said a woman who works at the Dar Al Saadeh Old Age Home, which also rents out its two main halls for condolence services. Then comes the cost of hiring the shaikh who reads the Quran, with his assistant. That’s another $100-$150 per day — a total of $300 for three days, followed by the cost of waiters to offer coffee and tea at the service, which costs another $200-$300.

One-day service

To cut the expenses, many residents hold the condolence service for one day only, or cancel it altogether, said Sana’a Al Usta at the Ministry of Religious Endowments.

“Others no longer hire a shaikh to recite the Quran but play the Quranic verses on a CD player. Some carry on the services by candlelight or LED lights if there is no electricity. Taxes from condolence service have dropped by around 40 per cent, she noted “because simply, people cannot afford three days of funeral ceremony any longer.”

Muta’a Al Khaldi, a waiter who serves on these funeral ceremonies, said: “Before the war, we used to offer coffee, tea, lemonade, zuhourat (rosewater), and sometimes, hot chocolate during winters. At Christian funerals, we offered cigarettes as well. Now we mostly offer strong Arabic coffee with no sugar. It’s less time consuming to brew — and much less expensive.” Correspondents H