Endowment: Validity of Prayer in a Laboratory Built on Former Graveyard Land

Practical Laws of Islam as per the teachings of Imam Khamenei

Endowment: Validity of Prayer in a Laboratory Built on Former Graveyard Land

English:

Question #2054:

In a teaching centre, there is a laboratory. The land on which the laboratory was built used to be part of an adjacent cemetery which is still in use. The employees use the laboratory to say their prayer. Is the prayer performed in that place valid?

Answer #2054:

Unless it is proved that the land of the existing laboratory is held in trust as a burial ground, there is no harm in saying prayer there. Nor is there any harm in having the right of disposal over the place in any [legitimate] way. However, if it is proved by way of valid evidence that it is an endowment designated only for burial of the dead, it should be restored to its original state and made available for that purpose. Rulings of usurpation are applicable to the installations erected on the land.

-Imam Khamenei, Practical Laws of Islam, Importance and Conditions of Endowments