Database: Death and Afterlife
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In time, rituals inspired by Prophet Muhammad's life started to coalesce into a distinctive Islamic burial rite practiced all over the empire. A unique element was a relatively short mourning period of only a few hours. In this small amount of time, the body was washed in houses or mosques an uneven number of times with perfumed water. Depending on the financial resources of the mourners, the deceased person was dressed with either a dedicated mourning shroud or a clean cloth, wrapped an odd number of times, with the best available cloth used for the head. Finally, the body was carried to a cemetery in a procession bringing together family members, friends, and neighbors. They laid the deceased to rest on their side, facing Mecca and the eventual judgment of God. The prominence of odd numbers in these practices were related to their signifying the oneness of God in Islamic theology.
Every one of these steps was linked to the perception of the afterlife. Those who passed away were believed to be awaiting a Day of Judgement, in which they would appear in the state in which they were buried. Then would be decided their eternal fate, either in Jannah, the final abode of the righteous or Heaven, or in Jahannam, the place of punishment for evildoers or Hell. Of course, this view of death as transitional did not prevent feelings of sadness: Abbasid cemeteries were full of family members visiting their dead loved ones, offering poems, prayers, and small tokens of affection or memorabilia.