God-centered resources from the ministry of John Piper

This is a guest post from a friend of ours who is a missionary doctor working with Muslims. It is a part of his guest series, "Day-to-day Observations from Asia."

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On Shoob Bara'At, the local Muslims in our country go to the graveyards to pray for the dead, mostly family and friends. I asked my friend, "Well, could you pray for a non-Muslim on that night also? How about Jews, Christians, and Hindus?"

He thought for awhile, and then replied, "Well, I guess I could pray for a Christian or a Jew, since we worship the same God, but I don't think I could pray for a Hindu, since they pray to different gods."

He offered to pray for any dead relatives of mine that needed prayer, but I respectfully declined. 

As we were walking about, observing the rituals (which were surprisingly festive, considering the circumstances), we ran into a Muslim gravedigger who was about to start on a job.

When local Muslims bury the dead, they do not preserve the body in any way, but just wrap it in a simple white sheet, and put it in the ground. No headstone, just a pile of earth. And in a hot and moist climate such as this one, bodies disintegrate rapidly.

Since space is at such a huge premium in the mind-bogglingly crowded alleys of our fair city, they obviously have to bury on top of a place where someone else was buried before. So I asked the gravedigger how long he would wait, before he dug a fresh grave on a site where someone was buried previously.

He was a remarkably cheerful chap, given the soberness of his profession, and he happily replied, "Ten years, Doctor-Sahib. I have every space memorized in these graveyards [that's at least a thousand graves], and I know where I can bury someone. If I wait ten years, then there will be no bones or anything when I start digging anew."

I am not sure in which part of my brain I will file away that little factoid, but I am sure to not forget it.