Muslims make use of the internet to pray for their dead

Sitting in her apartment, 70-year old widow Batool Jaffer puts her wrinkled hand on a computer mouse.

She clicks on a Web site, then raises her hands in a gesture of prayer for the departed soul of her husband.

On the screen in front of her is a photo of the grave at the Wadi-e-Hussain cemetery in Karachi where her husband Jaffer Hussain was interred last year.

She can visit this grave anytime online thanks to a simple but novel internet service used by hundreds of Shias.

"I am too old to go to the graveyard. But I can see the graves of my husband and nephew anytime," said Batool Jaffer, who lives at least 90 minutes' drive from the cemetery on the outskirts of this congested Pakistani metropolis, home to 14 million people.

Expansion

Wadi-e-Hussain, or the Valley of Hussain, was set up in 1999, and started the computerised service in 2001. Named after the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), it contains about 1,600 graves and plans to expand.

Among those buried there are 54 Shias killed in suicide bombings at two mosques in a rash of sectarian violence in May this year. Radicals were blamed for the attacks in Karachi, long plagued by communal tensions and militancy.

The graveyard is meticulously organised. Each grave is numbered and photographed, with a few personal details also uploaded onto the Web site immediately after burial. Mourners can easily trace a grave online by entering its number or the name of the dead person or the deceased's father.

The graveyard was set up with donations from Karachi's Shia community and offers a burial plot and the computer service for Rs 5,000 (Dh 299). Other graveyards in the city charge between Rs 10,000 and 12,000 (Dh594 and 720).

The graveyard management forbids extra construction around the simple graves, irrespective of the social status and wealth of the dead. Only victims of terrorism are distinguished from others, with a curved top to the rectangular gravestone.

The computer service has the approval of clerics, who say it offers a legitimate way to pay respect to the dead. Its success also reflects the growing use of the internet in this country from just 1,000 computer boffins and businessmen in 1994 to about 4.8 million out of the 150 million population today.

"In Sharia (Islamic law) it is allowed that we can recite Fateha (prayers) while looking over the internet ... for the happiness of the deceased's soul," said scholar Shabbar Hussain Zaidi.

Solace

Custodian of the graveyard, Syed Mohammad Alam Zaidi, said the internet service was set up largely to cater for expatriate Pakistanis who often miss the funerals of relatives and have few opportunities to visit the graveside in person.

Kalbe Abbas, an electrical engineer, who returned two months ago from Canada, recounted missing his father's funeral when he died in 2003, but took solace from seeing his grave on a computer screen.

"Definitely there is a difference between paying a personal visit to a graveyard and seeing images of graves on computer, but this Web site was a blessing for me because I saw my father's grave the day he was buried," he said.