"The Body Was Still Intact After 1 Year!" - He Washed 6,000 Dead Bodies

“The Body Was Still Intact After 1 Year!” - He Washed 6,000 Dead Bodies

And the first job I did was picking up deceased people. I honestly did it for the money. The count has been over 10,000 people I’ve put into a grave. We open the body bag and the maggots are everywhere. Worms. As I’m shrouding, spiders start coming out of the mouth and some little maggots coming from the nose and the ear. When he died, we got notified. And his brother said, “No, I’m going to cremate him.” I said, “Hey, your brother is Muslim.” He wanted to be buried Islamicly. “No, no. No way.” When the body went in, you know what happened when they hit the fire? It jumped up. And he went, “Oh my God, he’s alive!” He was the washer for 30-something years. He got my arm, and he put my arm on his leg. He said, “Now I’m happy. You can wash me when I die.” And the police seen them, put the sirens to pull over. They didn’t stop, they kept going. The car ended up in an accident. Both boys were burnt to death. 99.9% burnt. They said to me, “How are you going to wash them?” I said, “I have to.” So we put on the table. When I remember signing the death certificate for my father, I was driving and I looked in the van like this, and he was behind, deceased. You know, he used to wash me, now I’m washing him. And you know, when I shrouded him, and I felt the cold body skin. I said, “You know, Dad, you’re not gone. It’s just begun.” As-salamu alaykum (Peace be upon you) brother Ahmad Hraichie, thank you so much for being with us. Also known as Muslim Undertaker. As Towards Eternity, we are very happy to have you with us. Jazakallah khair (May Allah reward you with goodness). I’m very happy to see you and be pleased and we got to meet eventually. Can you tell us briefly about your life, please? Middle Eastern background. My grandparents came from Lebanon in the World War II to Australia. We were born in Sydney, Australia. Typical young man, play sports, cricket, soccer, athletics, then boxing, karate. And the first job I did was picking up deceased people when I was young. And from there I became a grave digger and then I got much more deeper into the world of the death, death and the last day on Earth. From 1996, the first person I ever buried, to today 2026. The count has been over 10,000 people I’ve put into a grave, dug graves, and over 6,000 people I’ve washed. Why did you choose this job? When I was about 14, 15, the first job that popped up was picking up dead people for our community. And I honestly did it for the money. I didn’t do it because I want to pick up dead people, because working with the dead would pay more money because nobody want to do this job. And the thing was, it could be any time of the night. So I thought, one body $30, wow this is good. If I get three a week, $90, I’m already… in one year I make three years’ worth of… this is how I was calculating, because you need money when you’re young. But the catch was I had to bring someone with me. The call would come, I tell, “Hey, can you go with me, I just got to do something quickly?” So my friend would be in the van… I’d make him go, we go to the hospital picking up… “What are you doing man? You told me we just gotta do something!” I’d make them lift with me. So I’d always get it in that way, you know. You know, after picking up the bodies, I would bring them back to the garage, back then. And after many, many years, the old people die, and then there was no one to do it but me. Do people get scared when they hear about your job? They get intrigued, they get intrigued. Some of the old people are superstitious. I go to shake their hand, they go “Ooh.” I go, “It’s alright, I only washed two people today.” You know. And then they look at me and go, “When I die, take care of me.” I said, “You don’t worry, you just die. Let me do the rest when you die.” You know, I respect the elders. How did you feel when you first washed a dead person’s body? He was the man that I would stand with. He was the washer for 30-something years. And he would teach me a lot, like I would learn from him. He was like a father figure to me. And his children had all been murdered, and he washed them. And I remember he even buried his wife. Obviously he got to 80-something years old, he started to get sick, and I came in to start washing while he was going through hospital and stuff. And then one day he just came, there was a funeral for a young man. So many young people there, he come from nowhere. The people said to me, “He’s back to take his job.” I said, “It is his job, not my job.” And he got a chair, and the washing table’s here, and he put the chair right in front of the washing table. He looked at me, he was a hard man, solid. He said, “Start.” So I said, “Rabbi shrahli sadri wa yassirli amri (My Lord, ease for me my task) Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim (In the name of Allah…)” I’ve done this before. And I washed, he’s just watching. He said to me once or twice, “A bit more, a bit more.” I finished, he got up, he went into the office and sat. I finished the washing, shrouding, he said, “Come in,” sit next to me. He got my arm, and he put my arm on his leg. He said, “Now I’m happy. You can wash me when I die.” Subhanallah (Glory be to Allah). And he walked off. I looked from the window and he had this walk where he would like this… and the guy has said to me, “He’s going to come back for his job.” I said, “No. He came to say goodbye. He won’t be coming back.” A few days later he died. Subhanallah (Glory be to Allah). And then I washed him. The washer was getting washed. And wallahi (by Allah) it’s… and I buried him, and washed him, and everything, you know. And he’s buried very close to my mum, behind my mum, and whenever I see my mum, I see him. Have you ever been really scared while washing a body? Not scared, but more humbled. You know, recently I washed a person who, he’d been dead for a few days. We had summer, 40 plus degrees Australia. The body in the heat decomposes very quickly. We went and got him, he had no family. We open the body bag, and the maggots are everywhere. -Worms -Oh worms. White maggots. And you know, subhanallah (Glory be to Allah), I got as much as I can clean him, then I started washing, finished, we dried him, we shroud him. As I’m shrouding, spiders start coming out of the mouth, and some little maggots coming from the nose and the ear. Have you ever had to wash a badly damaged body? And what was the difficult case you have ever handled? I remember two young boys, not 20 years old, best friends. They went to the gym about 11:00 p.m., they trained. And one of them, he was not licensed to drive, his license was disqualified. So they were coming back, and the police seen them, put the sirens to pull over. They didn’t stop, they kept going. What happened there we don’t know after, but anyway, the car ended up in an accident, exploded. Both boys were burnt to death. When I say burnt, 99.9% burnt. They said to me, “How are you going to wash them?” I said, “I tawakkaltu ‘ala Allah (I put my trust in Allah). I have to, because I know these boys used to love me.” They used to see me in the gym, you know, I’m a role model to these people. So we put on the table. I got the towels, wet them. In the bin. Another towel. Just dab. In the bin. I think I used about 20-something towels, just for my conscience that I washed them. Subhanallah (Glory be to Allah). Look, I remember not long ago, we went to an apartment and we called the police were there, and they broke the door down. And the man inside, the heater, it was winter, the heater was still on, and he was dead near the heater. And he’d been six weeks. So he had exploded, the stomach had exploded, it puffed up and it was broken, and it was just terrible, terrible sight. The policeman I remember ran out, couldn’t handle it, gagging like this. Subhanallah (Glory be to Allah), I remember we picked him up, and you know, dead weight is heavy. Took him back to the funeral parlor, and I remember the smell was that bad that it smelt there for a long time. You could still smell it for a long time, because the body had decomposed so badly. Sometimes you know what I do? I have two Vicks inhalers. I put them in my nose, like this, so that keeps going in, the Vicks. -Yeah? -Death has a unique smell. You know, people who are police or forensics, they know this smell, because they go to places where people been dead for a while, crime scenes. This smell is synonymous. Have you ever had to wash a child’s body? I washed many children, yeah. Children hurt me too. I cry a lot when the children get washed, especially when I see the parents, especially when it’s a child that the father says, “He was a mini me. He used to copy me and follow me everywhere.” But it’s a test, my friend, it’s a test by Allah. I remember a young boy, he was in a classroom. A lady was called to the school because her son was making a bit of trouble. So she went to see the principal. When she was leaving, she went to push the accelerator. Her water bottle fell under the brake, so she went to get it and pushed the accelerator, and the car went forward, not reverse, into the building, into a room like this, and killed two children. One Muslim kid, and one non-Muslim kid. This lady was very distraught, she’s old. When I was doing the funeral for the boy, his father was next to me in the car. I said to him, “Is it true that you’re going to have revenge?” Because she’s Muslim and they’re Muslim. He said, “No, I forgive her.” I said, “You forgive her? People saying there’s going to be revenge.” He said, “No. 6 months ago I was at her husband’s aza (condolences) when he died, I went to her house, I even ate in her house. No, I forgive her.” We’re driving to the cemetery, and he has a coffin at the back and his son’s this far from him. And he’s telling the world, “I forgive her.” -This went viral around the world. -Wow. And you know, subhanallah (Glory be to Allah), this shows Islam. This is true Islam. Did you ever hear a sound from the dead body like…? The body sometimes makes noises. You know, like air, air comes out… like… like… muscles loosen, especially when you start washing warm water, so things will loosen, they’ll twitch, like the arm is like this and it will just, and you think “What happened, who touched me?” You know, but I know it’s, it’s just normal, they’re not alive. Subhanallah, once you know, we’re burying, and a man was standing, and you know he… he on top of the grave, I think he had his phone here, and he was leaning over, and he dropped the phone in the grave, but he didn’t know he had dropped it. So I’m inside in the bottom, we had done, still in the bottom where the deceased is, so we finish, we cover the grave with the blocks, then the dirt, and then he’s like, “Where’s my phone? Can you ring my phone?” So I’m ringing his phone, and we can hear it ringing, and we’re moving closer and closer, and it’s coming from the grave. Subhanallah (Glory be to Allah). It’s ringing in the grave. He looked at me, I go, “Bad luck brother, it’s gone.” Can you explain step by step how I will be washed and buried after I die? At your time of death, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala sends His messengers, the angels, to come down first. They are the ones that sit, and you’ll see sometimes deceased looking at something. At that point in time, the angel of death will stand beside your head, and the soul will come out as described either water coming pouring out from a cup, nice and gently. That is why people go… you see it? They didn’t go… They actually draw their last breath in. When you die, the breath comes in, not out. This is death, the eyes look up. If they’re awake, because they see their soul leave. We have a special material, we have thousands ordered. It goes from here to the knees, and the material is black felt. Meaning the water does not penetrate through. So if you put a towel on the, on water, what happened? It looked, it goes see-through. If you had a white towel over and we washing, you’ll see everything. You don’t even need to, yeah. This is not transparent. So what we do is, when we go to wash, we pump the stomach first, make sure there’s nothing in the stomach. We push the stomach so anything in the stomach comes out. Straight away. Get the, get the impurities out. So sometimes you have to work very hard. Keep pushing, pushing, keep coming out, coming out, coming out. Sometimes it’s all medicine mixed with stool. Because you know, if you don’t do this, we wrap in white shroud. So imagine you wrap him, and then one or two hours later, you at the cemetery, you lift the body out to put into the grave, and under it is all feces. This is… So what we do is, with a sponge, soap or sidr (lote tree leaves), and from underneath we, we clean. And then we look. Clean. Look, keep looking if there’s any feces, any, anything that shouldn’t be, until that soap is white still, then we know it’s done. Did you not personally touched it, touch that those parts like… No, no, you got there’s a barrier between you and that. Our aim is to make sure we look at the sponge or the soap, and it’s come back pure, no marks or stains. The table is like this, and it has a drain. So he’s sitting on top, so anything comes out goes into the drains. If we see a lot of it and we clean, we have to put cotton inside the backside. So we put the cotton from under our hands, to close it, like you know, like a plug, and we put a plastic, cotton strip, so it doesn’t penetrate through. So the job is not just easy. It’s very private and very um, responsible. Responsibility. If you’re now pronounced as dead, preparations are made for your funeral. A WhatsApp message will ring around the world, or around wherever, depends how popular you are. “Such and such has died.” You’ll be carried on the shoulders of people you know, or strangers, depending on how many people who can lift. They will continue to a grave, to a hole in the ground. And I always tell people, the hole is like a hole that a cat digs to defecate, except a little bit deeper. In other words, they’re dead, just put you in a hole and go. Look at this. Look at what your ending is like for a human. Why do Muslims wash the body before burial, and considering cremation is common worldwide, do non-Muslims see this practice as strange? Have you seen how they cremate bodies? When you watch it, you’ll realize why the dignity of Islam is. When you cremate a body, I remember once we had a man, an old man, he’s a revert, become Muslim, old man from a European country, but he was in Australia. And his brother was the next of kin, so he had authority over him. When he died, we got notified. And his brother said, “No, I’m going to cremate him.” I said, “Hey, your brother is Muslim. He wanted to be buried Islamicly.” “No, no. No way.” Okay, so I know we went and watched the cremation just to see him, make sure, just to make du’a (supplication) for him and that, because it’s not in our control now. When the body went in, you know what happened when the hit the fire? It jumped up. And he went, “Oh my God, he’s alive!” I said, “No brother, you just killed him twice.” Like this to him, to make him feel bad. Because what happens, the heat, intense heat, the muscles and the nerves shrivel, so body jumps, like this. This is punishment. This is punishment. So in Islam, a Muslim lives a purified life. You go to the toilet, you wash, you make ablution when you pray. So the dignity is to bring that body back into a state of purity and cleanness, and they put it back into the Earth, because the Earth is clean. If you ever go on my social media, you will read the comments of people. They will say, “I am Catholic,” they’ll put their identity straight away, “I’m not Muslim. But what you do is dignity. What you show is true humanity to the deceased.” All this kind of talk, showcasing that we respect the dead, we give them dignity, and we give them their rights. And many prominent producers and that have done small documentaries with me, and they’ve come to funerals, and they’ve come back and said, “Man, this is the most dignified way of dealing with the deceased that I’ve ever seen.” I remember that man, during that time, people ran to carry the coffin up to the mosque. And I remember these people, they’re not Muslim, the producers and that. They said, “Is that all his family?” I said, “No, no, no, they’re strangers.” “Why are they carrying the coffin?” I said, “Because in Islam, we are all brothers and sisters to one another.” And he just went, “Man, this is beautiful.” You have attended many, many funerals. What is the thing that people regret the most? People regret the most is not re-tying the kinships. So for example, I had a guy once, he started to hit his head on the wall, because he didn’t talk to his brother for 10 years. 10 years because of a stupid, “he said, she said, whatever said.” And now at the time of death, “Why didn’t I just call him, why didn’t I just let this go, why don’t just, who cares?” Now it’s too late now. A mother who gets taken to the coroner because nobody knows who she is. Been dead for over a week in the house, her kids live in the same street, but guess what, they don’t talk to their mother. At the time of her funeral, they hitting the sand and the dirt, they couldn’t cope with it. This is why as humans, swallow this. Swallow your pride. Humble yourself, because wallahi (by Allah) it’s not worth the regrets, because as soon as you get to the grave, the regrets and everything stops. So let it stop from now, before you take it to the grave. The real richness in this world is contentment. Sakinah - tranquility. Contentment is a treasure that never diminishes or perishes. Can the dead see or hear us? There’s one narration by the Prophet (pbuh) at the time of death, that you will hear the footsteps leave. You will hear the footsteps meaning that you are now alone in the grave, people have left you. That is the only time that it’s ever narrated, that, but what kind of hearing, only Allah knows. The Prophet (pbuh) also said, “Do not mutilate or break bones of the dead.” Because the dead can feel, because they can feel it just like the living. And Allah knows best at the end, but we always, we always think positive of everything insha’Allah (if Allah wills). What happens if a person dies without having performed ghusl (full-body ritual purification)? If a person willfully or purposely doesn’t want to do the ghusl like for example I don’t know, he has relations with his wife, and just keeps going back to work and he hasn’t performed ghusl, this is, he’s impure. He’s in a state of impurity, Allah will deal with him in that way. But it doesn’t mean he’s not a Muslim anymore. Of course he’s still a Muslim, he still has to be washed and shrouded and purified. But that’s a sin on him. Has anything you experienced on the, on your job ever affected you for a really long time? This is 25 years ago, and we finished the funeral, I jumped on the machine, I continued to dig on the excavator. This man stood next to the excavator, he was tall because he was very high. I was high and he was high. And he had two smaller guys with him. And he had a, I remember he had a black leather jacket. And he said to me, “Is there another funeral?” I said, “No, no, no, just a spare grave.” Because I would dig spare graves. And I remember his two friends said, “Ali, Ali, let’s go.” And he went. Next day I remember it rained. The day after that, they rang me, said, “Go and dig a grave, make it a bit bigger.” So I said, “Man, we dig two meters, you ain’t going to be bigger than two meters whoever it is.” You know, they exaggerate. Funeral came, I was in the grave, they passed me, I jump in, you know, white shroud, you don’t know who it is, nothing. But I remember he was taller than the grave, so I had to bend the legs a little bit to make sure he fit. Come out, close everything, go. Next morning, I go early in the morning, to dig, and I saw a lady at the grave, at that grave that I had just done the day before. So I turned the machine off, and I used to ask questions, “What did they say, what did they do before they died, did they eat anything, anything,” I was very curious. She said to me, “You wouldn’t believe it. He was here just a few days ago.” I said, “For that funeral?” She goes, “Yeah.” I said, “How did he die?” She said, “He went to sleep, and in the morning I nudged him, didn’t wake up.” 40 years old. I said, “Did he have a leather jacket on?” She goes, “That’s his favorite jacket, he always wears the leather jacket.” I said, “Did he have two guys with him, they his best friends?” Then I looked at the plaque on the dirt, the name, it said “Ali.” And I knew it was him. Because he was tall, and everything fit to him. You looked at his own grave. I didn’t tell her that obviously, but yeah. Have you ever washed and buried someone you loved? And what did it feel like? My father, very recently too. When I remember signing the death certificate for my father, I remember he signed my birth certificate. When I picked him up from the hospital, to take him back to the morgue, I was driving, and I looked in the van like this, and he was behind, deceased. I said, “I’m driving you, Dad. You taught me how to drive.” And I remember when he used to teach me how to drive, “Ah move! What are you doing!” You know? Now I’m driving you. You know, he used to wash me, now I’m washing him. And you know, when I shrouded him, I remember when I was sick, or in bed, he would come and put the blanket over me and check up on me. Now I’m putting the blanket around him. And subhanallah (Glory be to Allah), when I buried him, it was the last time I got to see him and kiss him, I never, ever exposed anyone or kissed anyone in the grave except my father. And I felt the cold body skin. I said, “You know, Dad, you’re not gone. It’s just begun. We will be there with you soon, insha’Allah (if Allah wills).” It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do, is bury your parents. It’s something that everybody is going have to go through. Either you will bury your child, or they will, you will bury your parents. And that is when I see the reality hit on people. Have you ever experienced anything mysterious in a cemetery? We were working, and we, they opened the grave, a year later overseas, and normally a grave there’d be nothing left, just a few bones. They move the bones and they put another body, because there’s not much land. This grave, as soon as they opened it, they saw that the grave was, the body was still intact. Still as it was. So they closed it. 12 months later, they opened it again. I called and asked what happened, because I had left that place, and they said, “Still the same.” So we marked it as to never be opened. Is it possible for a Muslim to die without faith in their final moments? Like to lose their faith in their final moments? Of course. Of course. This is why the Prophet (pbuh) said, “Ask for a good ending. Husn al-khatimah (a good ending).” Always ask for a good ending. Ask Allah to give us a righteous ending, a good ending, because Imam Ahmad (an Islamic scholar), when his father was passing away, he would be in and out of consciousness. And he would say, “No, not yet, not yet.” When he finally could say something, his son said to him, “Dad, like father, you are a righteous man. Are you afraid of death?” He’s like, “No my son, the devil, the shaytan, was sitting next to my head, biting on his hand saying, ‘Oh Ahmad, I lost you! Oh Ahmad, you slipped by my hands, you slipped by my…’ meaning you’ve made it to jannah (heaven), I couldn’t get you.” And he was saying, “No, not yet, not yet.” Meaning I haven’t lost yet. The battle’s not over until we die. And we die, and both legs enter jannah (heaven), then you’ve made it. Till then, the test will come even harder at the time of death, because that is when the biggest patience is needed. This is when the shaytan (devil) does the hardest trials and tests to bring you, to make you turn at the end. He wants to make you believe that there’s no, there’s no hereafter. There’s no this. For the people that they, they lost their loved ones, what can they do to them to benefit them in the hereafter? The Prophet (pbuh) gave us the news that when you die, you’re cut from this world. But then he said, there’s a beautiful mercy here, that three things continue for you when you die. A righteous child that supplicates for you, so invest in your children. Beneficial knowledge that somebody you teach and they continue it. So teach people. Be a teacher, give knowledge, give advice. Good advice, not bad advice. And the third thing is an ongoing charity that you do. Building a water well, a masjid (mosque), whatever it is. And the Quran says, we will say, “Bring me back so I can do sadaqah (charity). So I can do salih (righteous deeds).” And what would your advice them, to remember death? Remember death for as long as you’re alive. In other words, remember it a lot. Because death is the destroyer of pleasure as the Prophet (pbuh) told us. The remembrance of death, it softens our hearts. And it makes us realize that the problems of this world are temporary. The sicknesses, the calamities, the trials, temporary. And it brings us closer to doing good deeds, and the meeting with our Creator, the owner of our soul, the One who created us, and will summon our soul back, the One whom we belong to, and that is Allah, and to Allah we shall return. But for the normal people, visit the cemetery, take your kids to the cemetery. Let them realize what the world is about. That this world is temporary. This world is an illusion. And for yourself, the cemetery is a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a virtue to visit, because it softens your heart, and you remember that subhanallah (Glory be to Allah), that you too one day, just like they did before you, walked, and owned bigger houses, and been more important than you, they are under the ground now, now today you are here, but tomorrow you’ll be beneath the ground just like them. Do you struggle to pray five times a day consistently? Or maybe you want to learn how to read the Quran in Arabic, and get closer to your Rabb (Lord), but you don’t know where to start? We have great news for you. We have developed two completely free and ad-free apps to help you on that journey. With our Salah Tracking App, you can track your prayers for 40 days and build a stronger prayer habit. And with the Lamelif App, you can learn to read the Quran from scratch through short, simple, and enjoyable lessons. Don’t put it off any longer. Take your first step today and download the apps from the links in the description.