Memorial Service

When my brother died, I realized that I had no notion of what we Iranians living in exile should and should not do for a funeral. So, I decided to look into our traditions both ancient and modern. When I asked around, I noticed that very few people knew what was to be done; in fact, many relied on what the funeral home told them. For example, at a recent Iranian funeral on Madison Avenue in New York the women were excluded from the prayers. I had not remembered this being the case in Iran. I discovered that the Koran was silent on the subject of funeral rites and that keeping women out of the prayer ceremony and the procession was a Sunni Islamic tradition that Shia Iranians had shunned early on.