*Muslim boy in NY cremated: what do you think? *
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/nyregion/04cremate.html?ref=nyregion&page
New York Times
October 4, 2008
Hindu-Muslim Family’s Choice of Cremation Arouses Anger
By ANNE BARNARD
Friends and family remember Shafayet Reja as an affectionate young man who
stayed up late to write poetry, danced exuberantly at weddings and explored
the faiths of his father and mother with an openheartedness that led him to
declare on his Facebook page, “I never get tired of learning the new things
that life has to offer.”
But within hours of his death on Sept. 10 after a car accident, his memory -
in fact, his very body - had become the object of a tug-of-war over
religious freedom and obligation. It began when his mother, who was raised
Hindu, and his father, who is Muslim, decided to have his body cremated in
the Hindu tradition, rather than burying him in a shroud, as Islam
prescribes.
His parents, Mina and Farhad Reja, say a small group of Muslims who do not
understand their approach to religion are trying to intimidate them over the
most private of family choices. “This is America,” Mrs. Reja said. “This is
a family decision.”
The couple say that people accosted them at their son’s funeral, that an
angry crowd threatened to boycott a shopping center they own in Jackson
Heights, Queens, and that on Sept. 13, two men they know threatened to bomb
and burn down the building.
The men they accused in a complaint filed with the police - one is a doctor
and the father of a close friend of Shafayet Reja, the other a Bangladeshi
business leader - say that they made no threats and deny that they have
called for a boycott. They say they and others simply expressed their
concern about what they see as a deep violation of their religion and of the
wishes of the son, who, according to some of his college friends, had
recently chosen Islam as his sole religion.
The Police Department’s hate crimes unit is investigating whether the
threats took place, whether they would constitute aggravated harassment, and
whether they qualify as bias crimes, which carry tougher penalties, a
spokesman for the department said. No charges have been filed.
What is not in doubt is that the episode is a source of consternation, from
the Queens neighborhoods where Mr. Reja’s parents live and work to their
native Bangladesh, one of the world’s most populous Muslim countries, where
it has been national news.
The dispute has especially swept up several bustling blocks in Jackson
Heights, where dozens of businesses are Bengali. It had business owners on
edge during the busy shopping season before this week’s Id al-Fitr festival.
The festival marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and brings
throngs of shoppers to dine and to buy jewelry and sparkling traditional
dresses.
The neighborhood is a place where business rivalries and family arguments
often intersect with disputes over Bangladesh politics, especially in the
case of Mrs. Reja, a prominent property owner and outspoken advocate of the
rights of Bangladesh’s religious minorities. Her 1999 self-published book,
“God on Trial,” angered some Muslims in the neighborhood with its critique
of Islamic fundamentalism.
The cremation dispute goes to the heart of a debate among Muslims in America
about what makes someone a Muslim - to some of the critics, the fact that
Shafayet Reja listed Islam as his religion on Facebook is enough - and how
to reconcile this country’s freedom of religion with what some Muslims see
as a communal obligation to uphold religious observance.
But to the family, the dispute is a frightening imposition that they say
violates their civil rights.
“We have freedom of religion, and we have the Constitution,” said the Rejas’
son Mishal, 19, who studies at Washington University in St. Louis. “Why
would they bother us? It’s none of their business. Even if he was the most
hard-core Muslim.”
To some Muslims, the fact that Shafayet Reja prayed and attended mosques
trumps his family’s wishes.
“It was the community’s business because the community knew he was a
Muslim,” said Junnun Choudhury, secretary of the Jamaica Muslim Center, one
of several mosques around the city whose worshipers came to the funeral to
plead with the family. “It is our job to bury him in the Muslim way.”
Neither he nor any other mosque leader has been accused of making threats,
and there have been no further protests.
Abu Zafar Mahmood, an adviser to the Jackson Heights Bangladeshi Business
Association, said he was disturbed by the cremation but was urging people
not to confront Mrs. Reja. “It would be harmful,” he said. “We have a
multicultural community.”
Mrs. Reja said she brought up her children by attending both Hindu temples
and Muslim mosques. “Humanism is what I taught my children,” she said. “I
want to see my son as a perfect human being, and not as a perfect religious
person.”
Whether or not her son was beginning to move closer to Islam is another
thread in the tangle of hurt feelings and disagreements.
Shafayet Reja, 22, graduated from the State University of New York at Stony
Brook in 2007. He was living with his parents in Richmond Hill, studying to
be a licensed insurance broker.
He was also spending a lot of time at the Long Island home of Dr. Khondeker
Masud Rahman - who was eventually accused of threatening his parents - and
Dr. Rahman’s daughter, Farah, a friend from Stony Brook.
Farah Rahman said that he had begun praying more often and talking to Dr.
Rahman about Islam, and that he had quarreled with his mother, saying she
blamed the religion unfairly for the mistakes of some of its followers. He
had even, she said in an interview, mentioned that he wanted a Muslim
burial. His family members and childhood friends say he would have wanted
his mother to choose.
On Sept. 2, Shafayet Reja broke the daily Ramadan fast with friends at Stony
Brook’s Muslim Students Association. Afterward, Farah Rahman was in the car
behind his when he lost control on a wet road. He was hospitalized, and died
on Sept. 10 without regaining consciousness.
When word spread that the family would hold both Muslim and Hindu rites for
their son and then have him cremated, the Rahmans and others were upset.
Father and daughter both asked the family to give him a Muslim burial. They
said the conversations were polite; the Rejas said they were hostile.
Several dozen people, including the imams of the Jamaica Muslim Center and
other mosques, came to the funeral home in Richmond Hill on Sept. 12, to
attend the Muslim rite and express objections to the cremation. The Rejas
say people crowded around them to press their case as they wept beside their
son’s body. “I was having my last moment with my son,” Mrs. Reja said. “What
gave them the guts to do that?”
The funeral staff called the police in part because the Rejas feared the
crowd would try to block the hearse going to the crematorium. Mishal Reja
stood in the door of the funeral home, asked the group to leave the family
in peace, and promised he would try to get the cremation canceled - just to
get them to leave, he said. The crowd dispersed peacefully.
Later that day, Dr. Rahman, an anesthesiologist at Elmhurst Hospital Center
in Jackson Heights, spoke to a group of people breaking the daily Ramadan
fast at a restaurant across the street from the family’s Bangladesh Plaza
mall.
According to the Rejas, and a report in a local Bengali-language newspaper,
he called for a boycott of the mall and for shop owners there to stop paying
rent, though he denied that in an interview.
Afterward, some of the people from the restaurant gathered outside the mall,
waving their sandals in an insulting gesture and threatening to boycott the
mall, according to two men who run shops there, who did not want to be
quoted by name for fear of damaging business relationships. One said that at
least one person in the crowd threatened to burn the building.
In the crowd, according to the merchants, was the secretary of the Jackson
Heights Bangladeshi Business Association, Zakaria Masud. Mr. Masud, too,
denied calling for a boycott, but said that protesting the cremation was “a
social obligation and a religious obligation.”
The next day, Mina Reja held a press conference at the mall, at which she
denounced the critics and asked for privacy.
Afterward, according to complaints the Rejas made to the police, Dr. Rahman
told Mishal Reja, “We will bomb your building,” and Giash Ahmed, a real
estate broker and former Republican candidate for state senator, told Farhad
Reja it would be burned.
Dr. Rahman and Mr. Ahmed said in interviews that they never threatened
anyone and were not even at the mall that day. Mr. Ahmed said Mrs. Reja’s
decision was her business.
Dr. Rahman said expressions of anger at Mrs. Reja should wait: “She should
have a time of healing.” He accused her of orchestrating the scandal and
fabricating the threat.
Meanwhile, under the neon signs and rainbow lights of Bangladesh Plaza,
shopkeepers worry that a boycott even by part of the community will hurt
their holiday business.
“Why should they involve people who are not involved? How will we survive?”
one of the shop owners said. Another said of the cremation: “It’s a family
matter. The parents, they decide.”