Islamic Scholars Question bin Laden’s Sea Burial

[tekisui]

Source: The Gleaner/AP

Muslim clerics said Monday that Osama bin Laden’s burial at sea was a violation of Islamic tradition that may further provoke militant calls for revenge attacks against American targets.

Although there appears to be some room for debate over the burial — as with many issues within the faith — a wide range of Islamic scholars interpreted it as a humiliating disregard for the standard Muslim practice of placing the body in a grave with the head pointed toward the holy city of Mecca.

Sea burials can be allowed, they said, but only in special cases where the death occurred aboard a ship.

“The Americans want to humiliate Muslims through this burial, and I don’t think this is in the interest of the U.S. administration,” said Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical cleric in Lebanon.

more: http://www.courierpress.com/news/2011/may/02/islamic-scholars-question-bin-ladens-sea-burial/

[somone]

1. The U.S. Navy also forgot to clip his toenails and perfume him with myrrh

:sarcasm:

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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[elocs]

3. Muslim clerics can have the moral high ground on this when they detail how well al Qaeda

as honored the religions traditions of the Christians and Jews for whose deaths it has been responsible. Maybe then they will gag on their hyporcrisy.

[madrchsod]

7. all three religions have sunk far below the moral high ground.

[Curmudgeoness]

4. It makes no difference how we dealt with his body and burial,

there would have been condemnation from some Muslim sectors. We were not going to make them happy.

I heard that there was a few reasons for the sea burial. The first problem was that there was only 24 hours to do the burial. The second problem was that several countries refused to accept his body for burial. And the most important, the sea burial does not allow for some sort of shrine to a martyr that a land burial would have caused.

I personally didn't see why we cared enough to make sure the burial was within the 24 hour period, but on second thought, it was a decent idea to avoid criticism over that. But as I said, it was going to make no difference.

[uppityperson]

11. "It makes no difference...there would have been condemnation from some Muslim sectors" Indeed

They treated his body with more respect than many feel it deserved and having no shrine is wonderful.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Waiting for a rumor along that of actions attributed to Gen Pershing

There is no single canonical source for Islam...I will give the USN credit for burying him with appropriate muslim methodology and ignore the claims of sacrilege etc.

[cloudbase]

6. No doubt that the revenge attacks

will be in keeping with Islamic tradition, too.

At this point, the scholars are engaging in an academic exercise. What was done was appropriate given the circumstances.

[bhikkhu]

8. I think it was brilliant

...first that they washed and prepared the body, while verses were recited, all in accord with muslim tradition, and then completed the ceremony before sunrise, as is also required.

The Saudis declined to receive the body, and where else should it have gone? In any case, a grave is inevitably a pilgrimage site, and denying him that is about the minimum rebuke he is owed.

[David__77]

9. They perhaps should not have said what they did with the body...

...other than to say that it has been laid to rest and is irretrievable.

[pa28]

10. The cleric quoted here thinks the intent was humiliation? What a complete lack of sincerity.

Bin-Laden's remains were treated with dignity and restraint and they know it.

[Curmudgeoness]

12. Until they start condemnations of what happens to our soldiers' bodies,

I don't have much interest in what they say.