This is a story that the mainstream media refuses to touch but is common knowledge in Western Africa in the areas where Ebola is spreading exponentially. Muslim burial practices may be contributing to an unchecked spread of the disease.
Here’s the story from Investors Business Daily:
Washington and its media stenographers won’t tell you this, lest they look intolerant, but Islamic burial rituals are a key reason why health officials can’t contain the spread of the deadly disease in West Africa. …
When Muslims die, family members don’t turn to a funeral home or crematorium to take care of the body. In Islam, death is handled much differently.
Relatives personally wash the corpses of loved ones from head to toe. Often, several family members participate in this posthumous bathing ritual, known as Ghusl.
Before scrubbing the skin with soap and water, family members press down on the abdomen to excrete fluids still in the body. A mixture of camphor and water is used for a final washing. Then, family members dry off the body and shroud it in white linens.
Again, washing the bodies of the dead in this way is considered a collective duty for Muslims, especially in Muslim nations. Failure to do so is believed to leave the deceased "impure" and jeopardizes the faithful’s ascension into Paradise (unless he died in jihad; then no Ghusl is required).
Response: The bodily fluids coming from the dead bodies of Ebola victims are known to be especially contagious with huge amounts of active virus. Red Cross and WHO (World Health Organization) officials have been trying to get Muslim Leaders to counsel their people to refrain from this traditional burial practice in the case of Ebola victims but they have largely been unsuccessful. As a result the disease in Muslim areas is spreading unchecked and taking whole families with it.
This whole issue has been hush-hush in the US but Saudi Arabia has recognized this unique threat coming from the Muslim community and has taken the extreme action of closing its borders to all Muslim pilgrims wanting to come to Mecca from the three most affected Western African countries- Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. *Top