Wednesday, May 04, 2011
Gulf News
Dubai The burial of Al Qaida founder Osama Bin Laden at sea has sparked controversy among Muslim scholars who say it was a violation of Islamic tradition. Top Muslim clerics said Islam is opposed to burial at sea and are not happy with the way Bin Laden’s body was disposed of on Monday after he was killed in a US military operation in Pakistan.
According to Islamic teachings, the highest honour to be bestowed on the dead is giving the deceased a swift burial, preferably before sunset. Those who die while travelling at sea can have their bodies committed to the bottom of the ocean if they are far off the coast, according to Islamic tradition.
President Barack Obama said the remains had been handled in accordance with Islamic custom, which requires speedy burial, and the Pentagon later said the body was placed into the waters of the northern Arabian Sea after adhering to traditional Islamic procedures — including washing of the corpse — aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.
Bin Laden’s burial at sea “runs contrary to the principles of Islamic laws, religious values and humanitarian customs,” said Ahmad Al Tayyeb, the grand Imam of Cairo’s Al Azhar Mosque, the top Sunni Muslim authority.
“Burial is the way to honour the dead,” he said.
The United States says Bin Laden received Muslim religious rites but his body was “eased” into the Arabian Sea so that no one can build a shrine on his grave.
Room for debate
“If it is true that the body was thrown into the sea, then Islam is totally against that,” said Mahmoud Azab, an adviser to Al Azhar Imam.
Although there appears to be some room for debate over the burial — as with many issues within the faith — a wide range of senior Islamic scholars interpreted it as a humiliating disregard for the standard Muslim practice of placing the body in a grave with the head pointed towards the holy city of Makkah.
A radical cleric in Lebanon, Omar Bakri Mohammad, said: “The Americans want to humiliate Muslims through this burial, and I don’t think this is in the interests of the US administration.”
Islamic researcher and Imam Dr Ahmad Al Garbi, said the burial procedure is incompatible with Islamic rules relating to the burial of the dead which cannot be done except on the land.
By Khitam Al Amir ?Staff Writer
Gulf News 2011. All rights reserved.
