Cape Town - The Muslim Judicial Council (MJC) of South Africa has issued a ruling on exactly who can and cannot conduct the Ghusl, or ritual washing and shrouding of a dead transgender Muslim before burial.
Mufti of the Muslim Judicial Council of South Africa Abdurragmaan Khan said the body should be washed by the deceased’s Mahram.
He was responding to a question from MJC second deputy president Shaykh Riad Fataar about the Ghusl of a dead transgender person.
In Islam, a mahram is a family member with whom marriage would be considered permanently unlawful or haram.
Khan said Islamic scholars did not mention transgender individuals “as this was a relatively new concept.”
However, he said they mentioned the “attractive amrad” (a handsome beardless youth).
He said attractive amrads shared some similarities with transgender individuals “as they have physical features resembling females”.
Quoting the writings of 17th century Islamic scholar Imam Ramli, Khan said where a mahram was unavailable the Ghusl could be carried out by a non-mahram male, but only if the body was veiled to avoid fitnah or temptation.
With regard to intersex people he quoted another scholar Ibn Hajar from the 15th century who said either sex may wash the body in the absence of a mahram.
“To summarise, if there is potential for sexual desire or fear of temptation while washing an ‘attractive’ transgender person, his or her mahram should wash the body.”
Khan said in Islam, a person’s biological sex remained unchanged regardless of any alterations they may make to their body.
He said he was only addressing the issue of individuals who may undergo changes to their bodies that could lead to situations of fitnah.
Asked why he had posed the question to the Fatwa committee, Shaykh Fataar said he was being “proactive” and confirmed the ruling applied to both transgender men and women.
Reacting to the ruling, the Open Mosque’s Jamila Abrahams said: “While the Open Mosque publicly welcomes and treats everyone, including trans people, with dignity, respect and compassion, we do not believe that sexual identity can be reversed or changed.
“We conduct Muslim funeral services for trans persons according to the gender specified at birth.”
She said gender self-identification was a “new contemporary fashion only made possible by modern medicine and endorsed by a trendy identity politics lobby to legitimise the miniscule numbers of self-declared trans people.”
As such she said the Open Mosque, which is described as a gender-equal, inter-racial organisation unaffiliated to any specific school of thought, ideology or denomination, would abide by “the immutable wisdom of Islam’s sacred scripture”.
On the question of whether transgender people of any faith should be buried in the gender they were born in or the gender they identified with, Freedom of Religion SA was neutral.
Spokesperson Daniella Ellerbrick said: “The bodily remains of persons who identify as transgender should be treated with compassion and respect.”
She said FOR SA’s mandate was only to protect the right to religious freedom as enshrined in Section 15 of the Constitution.
“We can only comment that all people should be buried in accordance with their chosen faith.”
Ellerbrick would not be drawn to comment on whether fears of how transgender people were treated in death led to families and loved ones trying to hide the fact to ensure a religious funeral.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za