Bereavement and loss in two Muslim communities: Egypt and Bali compared

Abstract

The paper discusses the experimental dimension of bereavement and grief in two Muslim societies, and argues that culture more than religion shapes and organizes responses to loss. The risks to health involved, clearly conceptualized in both societies, require entirely different preventive measures at the popular health care level to accommodate to different, culturally constructed notions of self, body and interpersonal obligation. A plea for indepth studies that focus more on emotional experience in loss than on ritualized mourning is endorsed.