Khaberni - Social media platforms in Iraq have recently witnessed an unprecedented spread of a phenomenon that sparked a wide wave of anger and great astonishment, represented in the circulation of videos and images of what has become known as "the deceased's cakes".
This peculiar phenomenon involves designing cake molds decorated in a striking way, not carrying celebratory messages, but texts intended for mourning, with noble Quranic verses or mournful words and pictures of deceased individuals printed on them.
This scene, described by many as "strange and unprecedented," has turned into rich material for debate on the internet, where activists and commenters expressed their severe displeasure with these practices they regarded as "defacing the sanctity of death and traditions," and some saw in it "a trivialization of feelings," while others wondered about the origin and genesis of this "innovation" that contradicts the social and religious customs followed in commemorating the deceased.
This incident was not the first of its kind, as the past months witnessed a repetition of the same matter that turned into a "trend" or a phenomenon that prompts disdain.
This phenomenon has caused a massive wave of rejection in Iraqi circles, where one of the circulated pictures showed a cake written on with the phrase "Mourning, the seventh day of the deceased Umm Hadi, we belong to Allah and to Him we shall return, may Allah have mercy on her and forgive her." Another cake featured the image of a deceased person, inscribed with the phrase "the seventh of the deceased Tuma Abdulabbas," details that fueled the debate around the violation of the sanctity of religious texts and the trivialization of traditional mourning rituals.
Angry responses
One user commented, rejecting this custom, by saying: "There is no longer sanctity for neither death nor sorrow, may God guide His creation," while another said, "There is no might nor power except with Allah, the ideas have become very strange, may God make the followers sensible and not imitate, as this imitation has become automatic in some people, they imitate without understanding, and without inquiry."
A third wrote, "That’s new, a family made a cake for the 40th day after the death of one of their relatives, the absurdity of it is laughable."
Although the identity of the original publishers of these clips has not been clarified yet, the phenomenon has spread very quickly, as it has been circulated by prominent local media, influential individuals, and numerous digital platforms in the country, thereby exacerbating the state of controversy.
