Rules Concerning Graveyards: Ruling on Restricting Grave Digging Beside Existing Graves

Practical Laws of Islam as per the teachings of Imam Khamenei

Rules Concerning Graveyards: Ruling on Restricting Grave Digging Beside Existing Graves

English:

Question #2086:

Funeral directors prevent the digging of new graves beside some existing ones. Is there a shar‘ī reason for that? Are they justified in what they are doing?

Answer #2086:

No one has the right to reserve land around the graves of their relatives and, thus, prevent the believers from burying their dead in the public cemetery provided that the latter is held in trust or made available for the public to bury their dead.

-Imam Khamenei, Practical Laws of Islam, Importance and Conditions of Rules Concerning Graveyards