A 36 y/o Muslim woman watched her younger cousin grow up in a tumultuous household. By the time he was a teenager, he’d fallen into a cycle of addiction and jail stints, despite family efforts to get him into rehab.

Last year, a routine traffic stop snowballed into an ordeal with a missed court date, cops showing up to the house, and, ultimately, gave him another court date. A day before the court hearing for possession of illegal drugs, he hung himself.

The sudden loss was more crushing because of what happened next. The woman who asked her cousin not to be identified to guard the family’s privacy, took charge of arranging the funeral. She called one after another but was rejected when they found out the death was a suicide

Finally, she begged a friend's contacts at a mosque half an hour outside the city to help. They agreed to, on condition that her cousin’s body didn’t enter the mosque.

Months later, she questioned the legitimacy of refusing a deceased's burial, who has committed suicide.

The sanctity of life is emphasised throughout the Qur’an. Some ahadith say, those who die by suicide will face Hellfire & will experience their suicide again for perpetuity. Some authorities conclude that suicide is an unforgivable sin, others counter that such an interpretation

contradicts another verse that says all sins are forgivable except for shirk akbar. They also point that the Prophet ﷺ said, all Muslims deserve prayer. If prayer is ruled permissible, then the other rites should proceed as normal.

The calls I take, I gather that survivors spend a lot of time thinking, if only. And one of our if-onlys, or what-ifs, was:

What if there hadn’t been such stigma about mental illness?

A survey conducted by the UK charity, Muslim Youth Helpline back in 2013 revealed that 32% of young British Muslims have suffered suicidal thoughts at some point; 52% have suffered from depression; and 63% have struggled with anxiety.