Egyptians look to the consolation events from a different perspective, and in this post I will tell you reasons why you should NEVER make a consolation in the street.
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1) It costs an arm and a leg.
Believe it or not but holding consolations is a business just like any other business..it costs a lot to hold a consolation , specially that Egyptians like to stand out and be noticed by others..they want the consolation to be the speak of the neighbourhood ..
You will need to pay the Sheikh EGP 7,000 : 1,000 in average, besides the money you will pay for the agency to organize this event for you.
The coffee which will be served must be excellent, type of chairs you will rent, the incense which will be in the entrance and the duration of the event, all these are factors determining the quality of the consolation and the cost as well .
Remember , you want the consolation to be spoken about for years !
Guess what! all of these are non-sense to the dead person..and to others as well..
you can do an ongoing charity for the dead person, this will be better for him, this will benefit him more than this event.
2) It is very annoying!
In case you want people to hate the dead person instead of praying for him, hold a street consolation!
Do you know how much noise does the sound system make? can you imagine how distracting it is?!
there are people who are living in this street, some of them might want to sleep, study or read, one of them maybe ill or having a headache already..You can't ruin their day just because you are holding a consolation.
3) It will block the street!
From the beginning of the day, while the workers are preparing the consolation until the end of the day, the street will be blocked, cars will not be able to move, nor will people!
drivers will be forced to change the way, even if the other way is longer, or there may be no other way rather than this which you are blocking!
4) No benefits are coming from this!
Almost nobody will be listing to the recited Quraan, nobody will be thinking about the fact of death and how close it is to all of us , nobody will be remembering the good times the spent with the dead person, people will continue gossiping about recent issues and news! which probably are the latest accomplishments of the president!
We are not telling you not to make a consolation, but think about it, why to hold it in the street while you can hold it in the mosque, mosques have places for such events, it will cost you so much less, that way you will not annoy your neighbours, you will harm nobody, and the consolation will be done..see?! win-win situation!
