LONDON – For years, Londoner Muslim Abu Mumin has been supporting terminally ill Muslims at their hospital beds, offering them rare comfort and support in their last days.

“Our work involves intensive befriending,” Abu Mumin, a social worker from London who is part of an organization called Eden Care, told Al-Jazeera on Saturday, October 14.

“We spend the evenings with them to give them company, we take food, do activities, we read the Qur’an, and even take them on trips to places they can’t visit because of their physical disabilities.”

Eden Care identifies terminally ill people who have no loved ones to look after them and sets about providing them with companionship towards the end of their lives.

The organization usually works with patients who are estranged from their families, who might have otherwise to spend their final weeks of life alone.

Converts to Islam are one of the key demographics that Eden Care works with.

“We get a lot of reverts who are often the only members of their families that are Muslim, so find themselves quite isolated and worried about what will happen when they die,” Mumin said.

“We have had Muslims who ended up having Christian burials, for example,” he added.

In such cases, his role takes on a more educative and legal dimension, educating next of kin about Islamic burial procedures and drawing up the necessary paperwork to ensure the dying are buried according to their religious tradition.

“There have been cases where families insisted on a non-Muslim burial, but in others, they have been very supportive because of the wishes of their relative,” he explains.

Duty

The Muslim volunteer started his social work after the death of his mother, who was terminally ill for fifteen years, during which he took care of her.

“The day that my mum died, that part of me that I was doing before, I lost that,” he reflects, adding: “What gave me peace was helping her … A lot of the services [Eden Care offer] are reflective of our own experiences.”

Religion plays an important role, too, especially Islam’s invocations to look after the sick, and the communal requirement on Muslims to ensure that a fellow Muslim be buried according to Islamic rites.

“Both historically and today, a funeral remains a social obligation, what is defined as ‘fard kifayah’ in Islamic theology,” says Abdul Azim Ahmed, a researcher on contemporary Islam.

“Like births and marriages, death is something that affects the community, and the funeral in the Islamic tradition reaffirms that while we are all individuals, we belong to each other in both life and death,” he explains.

Mumin is one of 30 people at Eden Care, the majority of whom are volunteers.

Earning deep respect from locals in London, he concedes that the scale of their work is relatively small and much more is needed.

“It’s a duty … but I just think we’re scratching the surface.”