ABSTRACT
Islam, the fastest growing religion in the world today, sees itself as part of the Abrahamic tradition, the tradition that includes Judaism and Christianity. For Islam, the individual person is fully real and good in principle. The way that the religion is customarily understood in the West does not really apply to Islam. The community, the family system, the friends, other institutions, is supposed to come in and support the family where the death has taken place. While death in its most fundamental sense is a passage to accountability before Allah, it is also a tearing away from our loved ones in this life. Death is something that each has to deal with, each has to orientate ourselves to the transcending reality. Prayer and ritual gives strength, particularly in the moments of illnesses and death and dying.
