The Green Folder in the Drawer: What I Want My Non-Muslim Mum to Know About My Funeral

My mum found the folder by accident. She was looking for a takeaway menu in the kitchen drawer, pulled out a green cardboard wallet instead, and read the label I had written in biro: Funeral — call these people first.

There was a pause. Then, from the hallway: “What on earth is this?”

I had imagined this conversation happening calmly, maybe over tea, ideally after I had rehearsed it. Instead it happened on a Tuesday evening with the oven fan roaring and a half-open bag of oven chips on the counter. That is probably how most of the important conversations in British families actually happen.

The Drawer Was Not Meant to Be Dramatic

I am a convert. My mum is not Muslim. She is the sort of person who keeps her own funeral wishes in a brown envelope marked “do not lose this” and has already told me which hymns she wants. So the folder was not out of character for our family. It was just that mine contained words she did not expect: janazah, ghusl, kafan, burial, mosque.

To her, those words looked like a different language. To me, they were a map.

When I came to Islam, I did not just take on a new way of praying or fasting. I took on a new way of thinking about death. That is not a gloomy thing. In many ways it is a relief. But it does mean that if something happens to me, my mum and my Muslim community could end up standing in the same room with very different ideas about what should happen next.

I wanted to close that gap while I was still here to answer questions.

The First Awkward Question: “Will I Be Allowed to Come?”

My mum’s first question was not about cremation or paperwork. It was: “Would I be allowed to come to the funeral?”

I think that is the question a lot of non-Muslim relatives are really asking when they go quiet at the mention of a Muslim funeral. They are not trying to be difficult. They are frightened of being shut out. They are worried they will do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, wear the wrong thing, or be quietly judged by people they have never met.

The honest answer is that funeral customs vary across mosques and communities in the UK. There is no single template. But in my experience, most communities want the family to be present. I told my mum that yes, she would be welcome, and that I would write down the practical bits so nobody had to guess. Women may be directed to a particular area at the burial, or asked to stand a little back from the graveside. Some mosques have clear arrangements; others are more informal. The point is to ask beforehand, not to assume.

The bigger point is that she needed to hear she would not be an outsider at my own funeral. That mattered more than any leaflet.

Burial, Cremation and the Bit Where We Disagreed

My mum has always said she wants cremation. Her mum was cremated. Her dad was cremated. It is what she knows. She finds the idea of a full grave, a headstone and a plot to visit a bit heavy. She once told me she would rather be “scattered somewhere with a nice view and a decent car park”.

I, as a Muslim, am not planning on cremation. Muslim burial is usually a burial, plain and simple: washed, wrapped, prayed over and placed in the ground, normally facing Makkah. Many communities try to bury as soon as possible, though in the UK that depends on paperwork, the coroner, the cemetery and the funeral director. It is not always within twenty-four hours, whatever people tell you.

This was the awkward bit. I did not want to pretend that my wishes and my mum’s expectations were the same. They are not. But I also did not want to turn my death into a debate about theology at the kitchen table. So I said the plain thing: “I know this is not what you would choose for yourself. But this is what I choose for me. I am not asking you to agree with it. I am asking you to know it.”

She nodded. Then she said, “I just don’t want you to be far away.”

That is the real conversation underneath the paperwork. Not cremation versus burial. Distance. Belonging. Who gets to mourn where.

What Actually Went in the Folder

I am not a solicitor, and this is not legal advice. But here is the practical shape of what I put together, and what I would say to any convert trying to have this conversation in the UK.

A will. Not a funeral plan leaflet stuffed in a drawer, but an actual will, drawn up properly. In England and Wales, your funeral wishes are not always legally binding in the way people assume. The executor has a lot of power. So the will names an executor I trust, and it includes a short letter of wishes that explains the religious side clearly. If you are in Scotland or Northern Ireland, the rules differ, so check locally.

A named person to call first. Not a vague “the mosque”. An actual name and number. My folder lists my mum, then a friend from the mosque, then the funeral director we have spoken to, then the imam. It also says: “Do not ring my old work number. I left in 2023.”

The funeral director. I rang a local firm that has experience with Muslim burials. They were kind and unbothered. They asked practical questions: which cemetery, which mosque, who will do the washing, whether the family wants to view the body. I wrote the answers down. It took forty minutes and removed a mountain of guesswork.

The cemetery plot question. Some councils have Muslim sections; some do not. Some cemeteries have plots available now; some have waiting lists. I found out what is actually possible in my area rather than relying on what someone said in a group chat. I also wrote down that I do not want a cremation, in plain English, because I do not want anyone to have to interpret a religious term they do not know.

The people to ring after the burial. My mum will need her sister. My friends will need each other. Somebody needs to tell my employer. Somebody needs to feed the cat. It sounds ridiculous next to the word funeral, but it is all part of the same act of care.

The Bit Nobody Warns You About: The Tea

My mum’s second big question was about the gathering afterwards. She has been to church funerals where there are sandwiches, sausage rolls and a lot of standing around in a hired room. She could not picture what a Muslim gathering would look like.

I told her it might be simple. People come, they pray, they eat, they leave. There may not be a formal wake. There may be no alcohol. There may be a lot of tea. There may be aunties she has never met who will insist she eats something. She looked relieved. “So it’s not that different, then.”

It is not, really. The details change. The grief does not.

Why I Am Glad She Found the Folder

I would love to say the conversation ended with a warm hug and a shared understanding of eschatology. It did not. It ended with my mum saying, “Right, well, put the chips on,” and then, ten minutes later, “Can I write something in your folder?”

So I gave her a pen. She wrote a note on the back of the letter of wishes: “Call Auntie Jean first. Then the mosque. Then put the kettle on.”

That is the whole thing, really. A convert’s funeral plan is not about being morbid. It is about not leaving the people you love to guess. It is about making sure your mum knows she is not an afterthought in your new life. It is about putting the awkward conversation in a drawer so that, one day, nobody has to have it while the oven fan is roaring.

I still hope nobody opens that folder for a very long time. But I am glad it is there.