Burial Land - Reusable Graves

Society Religion & Philosophy
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I have a Deja Vu feeling I started this thread a day or two ago before but I can’t seem to find it…

…Anyhow, the size of graveyards is increasing day by day, in my village the dead occupy more space than the living.

In the West land is expensive and scarce, Western Muslims face great difficulty when trying to acquire land for Muslim cemetries.

I heard about a great soloution to the problem. In Saudi Arabia they re-use the same graves, they wash, shroud and pray funeral over the corspe as usual but when they bury it they sprinkle a chemical over the corpse, the chemical disintegrates the body very quickly and a week later somebody else can be buried in the same grave.

I don’t see anything wrong with it, the body would disintegrate sooner or later anyway through maggots, the chemical just speeds up the process.

The soul is the real thing anyway and that travels on to Allah, the body is just a temporary casing for it.

It would be nice to have just one walled rectangular patch of graveyard to the corner of the village soemwhere instead of creepy cemetries scattered all over the place.

The Hindus burn their dead and are done with it, the Zoroastrians feed their dead to birds of prey and are done with it, we Muslims have to worry about finding new land for generation after generation of our dead.

Land is becoming more and more scarce.

I think Muslims in Pak and the West should do what the Saudis do and have reusable graves.

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Re: Burial Land - Reusable Graves

^No such chemical i sbeing sprayed in Saudi Arabia

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Re: Burial Land - Reusable Graves

A buried body decays slowly then once exposed to nature. The skeleton of a human takes very long period to decay. the only way to accelerate it is either burn in or pour some acid to it.
I never heard of it happening anywhere in the Muslim world. We treat our dead with utmost respect. Desecration of a dead body is big sin in Islam.

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:smack:

whoz gona allow that… not me atleast…

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Re: Burial Land - Reusable Graves

Question: Why is cremation not allowed in Islam??

I thought that after death, the body is just an empty shell.

What difference does it make if it rots underground or is turned to ashes.....in the end, everything becomes dust anyway.

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Re: Burial Land - Reusable Graves

But the body belongs to Allah Swt.. we don't have the right to burn it or whatever..

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Re: Burial Land - Reusable Graves

Re-usable graves are required. This is a problem that is not just facing the Islamic world but also the Christians. Individual tombs are a waste of prime land.I am a christian. In our village, every family is allotted a tomb and all the family members who die are burried in the same tomb. If the dead body is not completely rotten by the time another death occurs in the family, then the remains are moved. We also write the names of the people who have been interred into the tomb. This gives the younger generation an idea of the family history.

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It is time that the living is also treated with the utmost respect. With the population increasing day by day,land is becoming scarce. More and more prime land is being occupied by burrial grounds. Body being decayed is also desecration. It is time that we separate the rhetoric from the factual and think logically.

tOOn
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The following r da reasons for prefering burial instead of cremation.

1. Components of human body present in da soil
Elements that are present in the human body are present in lesser or greater quantity in the soil. Hence it is more scientific to bury a dead body, as it easily gets decomposed and mixed in the soil.

2. No Pollution
Cremating (burning) the dead body leads to pollution of the atmosphere which is detrimental to health and harmful for the environment. There is no such pollution caused by burying a dead body.

3. Surrounding land becomes fertile
To cremate a dead body several trees have to be chopped, which reduces the greenery and harms the environment and the ecology. When dead bodies are buried, besides the trees being saved, the surrounding land becomes fertile and it improves the environment.

4. Economical
It is expensive to cremate a dead body when tons of wood have to be burned. Annually there is a loss of crores of rupees, only because dead bodies are cremated in India. Burying dead bodies is very cheap. It hardly costs any money.

5. Same land can b utilised fr burying another body
The wood used for cremating a dead body cannot be reutilised for cremating another dead body since it gets converted to ashes. The land used for burying a dead body can be reutilised for burying another body after a few years since the human body gets decomposed and mixed in the soil.

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Hi simplyme, that's interesting, it's nice to have somebody give us another culture's perspective, I agree with you that individual tombs are a waste of land.

Are you Pakistani Christian?

Are your tombs like a morgue? Do you 'bury' your dead above ground? Pakistani Pagans known as the Kalash leave their dead in caskets in the forest above ground too.

Can I ask what do you do with the remains of the previous body? How do you dispose of them?

I know bones don't disintegrate very quickly, recently at Golra-Sharif near Islamabad a 100 yr old graveyard was dug up to make room for a carpark or motorway and the bones are still solid.

Our Muslim scriptures call for very simple graves, fancy marble headstones and great big structures are seen as useless and wasteful in our religion (the money is better given away in charity) but some Muslims still insist on building great big extravangant graves.

Traditional Muslim funerals are very simple, the body is washed, shrouded in a simple white cloth and then prayed for over and then buried in a simple grave, plastering the grave or putting fancy headstones on it is against our religion.

In my village our older generation followed a "Catholic-like" denomination of Islam that wasn't really inline with the scriptures but popular, we had Muslim saints just like Catholics do with great big mausoleums and tombs built for them but now our village people have turned to a more "Protestant-like" version of Islam so all these tombs are being knocked down leaving a simple grave where the so called saint is buried and the land around the grave used as a general graveyard.

Exactly.

After burial the body is bound to disintegrate anyway, the chemical just speeds up the process.

Some soils are naturally very corrosive anyway.

Quiz Question : What does the marketing term AIDA stand for?
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Building graveyards everywhere and out of place is stupid and ridiculous.
Lack of space is a real problem that we can't ignore.

A few days ago at Golra Sharif near Islamabad, a 100 year old graveyard was bulldozered over to make space for a carpark or something, the bones are lieing everywhere, it's desecreation but people don't have a choice when people start burying anywhere and everywhere.

In our village everyone has their own burial plot in his field, half a century or so from now when our village turns into a town and the goverment decides to build it according to plan what happened at Golra Sharif is going to happen to these graves and the bones of our families will lie about everywhere on the streets.

It's just not economical or practical to keep making graveyards everywhere.

Reusable graveyards are a must.

I hope people who make great big mausoleums, tombs and seperate graveplots for their family understand that sooner or later these will have to be bulldozered over, if space is not a problem today in Pak it will be in the future.

Quiz Question : What does the marketing term AIDA stand for?
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No I am not . I am an Indian Catholic.

I really do not know how you can burry your dead above the ground. The ground is dug and then the body is placed there and soil placed over the coffin. A tomb which covers the ground is built.

Difficult question to answer. Different parishes approach the problem differently. In my parish, the remains are thrown to a common place.

Glad that you understand and it is time that everybody also understands.

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To it would be rhetoric to me it is sanctity of dead as mandated by my religion. So would you allow that acid be poured over dead body of your loved ones ? Would you allow it to be done to your dead body.
There is plenty of land in the world still for grave yards. In worst case scenario dead bodies can be dumped into sea. It is better than what you are proposing.
It is not as rhetorical as you think.

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Re: Burial Land - Reusable Graves

One word...

Morbid.

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So you would allow viruses and bacteria to feed on the body. It is suprising that you dont see anything happening to the the sanctity when it decomposes. Ya there is plenty of land in the world for grave yards, but my question is where. So you want the sea to be polluted with dead bodies.
I personally would have acid to be poured over my body if it decomposes faster. I do not want somebody else to not have a home.

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Re: Burial Land - Reusable Graves

i ve read all the comments above .. and to what i ve studied in Islam and what i know and what logic tells me .. where religion plays a big role ..

the conclusion: i would not agree for my grave to b re-used .. not beng selfish however simple logical reason like .. a grave its a nishaani / sign for the ppl you leave behing .. for my children ..and if they wish to visit their fathers grave .. and so they can bury a branch - as it says in Hadith .. whilst the branch stays green .. the punishment of the grave is reduced ... so my children can pray on my grave for my forgiveness .. etc

if however, there isnt a sign .. wud i be leaving this world happy ? .. or lets say .. the a friend / wali of Allah passes away .. and and the local community want to remember him ..wudnt ya want his legacy to remain ..ATLEAST a visible sign ..

well ..Everyone has their own opinions ..

BUT THE BOTTOM LINE IS: ALLAH SWT HAS SAID TO BURY THE DEAD, AND WHO IS WISE? US OR ALLAH? IF ANYONE UNDERSTANDS CIRCLE OF LIFE .. ALLAH SWT WILL PROVIDE FOR EVERYTHING, ANYTHING WHICH WAS A PROBLEM FOR US ..ALLAH WILL ALWAYS SOLVE. ANYWAY. HAZRAT AADAM AS SE LE KAR AB TAK HOW MANY PPL HAVE DIED?? DOES ANYONE KNOW ..YET STILL AAJ TAK NO ONE HAS RE USED, OR IF SOMETHING LIKE THIS WAS NECESSARY THEN THE PROPHET SAW WOULD HAVE ADVISED!!

HAVE FAITH IN THE ALMIGHTY AND HE WILL PROVIDE FOR ANYTHIING WHICH WE DONT HAVE AND IN THIS CASE IS LAND. HAS HE - ALMIGHTY DENIED US OF ANYTHING YET TILL NOW FROM THE CREATION OF ADAM (AS) TIL THE SENDING OF THE PROPHET SAW AND TILL NOW ???

Timepass- December 2012
Timepass- December 2012
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Also God asked us to think. Use our brains. If we have a problem, it is time that we used our brains to think of a solution instead of waiting for God to give a solution.

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You guys are mistaken if you think there is enough room on earth for an individual grave for everyone from Adam (PBUH) to the last person.

Old graveyards are being destroyed all over the world (including the Muslim World) because of lack of space.

Recently at Golra-Sharif near Islamabad a 100 yr old graveyard was bulldozed to make a carpark (the skeletons were lying about everywhere), a hospital was built over a graveyard in my village, when Mangla Dam was built the graves in the area were all washed into the sea, the graveyard where my aunty and cousin were buried had a motorway built over it and there's countless other examples...

The same fate will meet other graveyards if they are not compact in size and to the side.

If you think you can keep making new graves for everyone and they'll still be there forever and ever you are mistaken, sooner or later their destruction and desecration (bayhurmati) is inevitable.

I would rather the decomposed remains of my loved ones stay in a grave to the side than have them washed away to sea or thrown about whilst they're still whole.

In Britain people are resuing the same graves once they get a 100 yrs old.

I knew a Mirpuri aunty in Britain, I asked her why she hasn't been to Pakistan for so long, she said she hated Pakistan because the graves of her elders were desecrated in that country, she said her mother died and it hadn't even been a month before the goverment decided to make a water dam where her mother was buried, her mothers corpse was washed away to sea. This happend on privately owned land, the goverment didn't even ask the locals for permission (just like recently in Balakot the past goverment was forcefully confiscating poor peoples land to make New Balakot City for the rich army types).

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I have been thinking about this topic again recently.

I read an article in the paper that a piece of land for a grave can cost anything upto £4000...

...Also the councils in certain areas are thinking of having double-decker graves, where one grave is lower in the ground and then another is made directly on top of it.

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I see that nobody is too keen on my idea of using chemical.

How about if the optimum conditions for decomposition (heated to the right temperature, right humidity, right PH, oxygen etc.) were present in the grave for the body to decompose naturally?

Maybe these conditions could be created manually by watering the graves with a sprinkler every so often, using the right ph soil, pumping oxygen into the grave and possibly underground heating for an optimum temperature??

So that when the body is decomposed, the body of a relative can be buried in the same place.