Women’s Day Special: The Last Bath

The Gusul you are given before you meet your creator

In the small community of the Dawoodi Bohras, there has been a tradition of bathing the dead that is as old as the community itself. When asked, why? They simply said that it’s like when you take a bath or shower before going to some important work event. Death they believe is not the end of life but the beginning of an eternity of being with your creator, Allah. And when you are going to meet Allah, you need to be in the best clothes and absolutely clean.

You might be wondering who the people who bathe the dead are. It obviously can’t be the dead themselves. I had the same question and to find the answers I went digging. While doing so I met a 64-year-old woman from Nallasopara who has been doing this for over 40 years. Unfortunately, she denied giving us any pictures of the ritual and hence none are published but the important details can all be found in this article.

Nafisa Sarangpurwala is a part of the Dawoodi Bohra community and has been bathing the dead since her early 20s. Now a widow, she is the mother of two daughters and a son and has six grandchildren. She had been married to Yusuf Sarangpurwala when she was 18 years old. Due to his job, the first four and a half years Yusuf was in Kuwait. It was during this time that she decided to start doing something to give something towards the welfare of the community.

Her father-in-law was the one who motivated her to actually join the committee for bathing the dead or giving them gusul (cleansing bath in Muslims). In the early years, she would simply stand in a corner and observe what the others, who were older than her were doing. Then she started by helping them with getting the water and small things like that. Slowly within a month or two, she had understood the whole process with all the duas (prayers) and the necessary rules that needed to be followed so as not to hurt the dead.

When Yusuf returned to India the family decided to shift to Nallasopara, Mumbai Sur-Urb and for the next few years, Nafisa had her kids and had stopped working. When her oldest was around 7 years old she decided that she wanted to do something for the community that no one was doing. At that time Nallasopara didn’t have a burial place for the community and the dead were taken to Vasai for being bathed and buried.

Nafisa and five others at that time came together and decided to form the first women’s group in Nallasopara who had full knowledge and experience of giving gusul to the dead. In the last 40 years, however, Nafisa is the only one of the original 6 to be alive and active enough to still keep doing what she had started decades ago.

There have been several instances with her where she was asked to come in the middle of the knight because of sudden death and at that time, she says that she is very thankful for both her parents-in-law to support her and take care of her children.

Being 64, she isn’t the fittest and cannot do a lot, but she still goes every time someone calls her to give gusul and guides the youngsters who are taking the tradition forward. And she has been doing all of this for over 40 years just to do her bit for the community without asking for anything in return.

Email: 202000330@vupune.ac.in