The burial at sea was a sad miscalculation, says Abdal Hakim Murad
Murad: Muslim leaders have found totally unacceptable procedure
Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayyib said the U.S. action is a violation of Islamic procedures
Editor's Note: Abdal Hakim Murad, a professor of Islamic Studies at the Faculty of Theology, University of Cambridge, England. In 2010 he was elected Britain's most influential Muslim thinker by the Jordanian Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre. His latest book, the bombing without moonlight, is about the religious significance of suicide bombings.
Death, as Henry James said, is "to distinguish it." If we believe in immortality or think that consciousness dies with the body, instinctively treated with a mixture of excitement and respect. Remember the death of Socrates, Kennedy, Gandhi, and Hitler.
Unless the suicide, their deaths were not of their choice, but in a strange way to being a living part of his legacy. Sometimes our last moments forever the way the way you remember.
Death and the elimination of the Middle East "Lord of Darkness" was always going to be an iconic moment. Its symbolism would give a special touch to the way they are remembered. No doubt this was done by the strategists of President Obama. However, there are good reasons, pragmatic and idealistic, which suggests that the final showdown with Osama bin Laden was dangerously mishandled.
The burial at sea was a sad miscalculation. It is not clear that the Pentagon has your information on Islamic rituals. You can not ignore, however, that Muslim leaders have found the procedure by which the body was tipped into the sea, after a Muslim ceremony unspecified totally unacceptable.
The leading academic institution in the Muslim world is Al-Azhar in Cairo, Egypt. And the Muslim world has listened with concern the trial of Al-Azhar in the "sea burial."
The burial at sea was a "violation of the procedures Islamic"
- Shaykh Ahmad al-Tayyib
Although Bin Laden had systematically attacked Al-Azhar scholars as apostates and collaborators with the Egyptian regime, and had no time to Wahhabi beliefs, the Azharite were unanimous. The head of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayyib, declared the U.S. action as a violation of Islamic procedures.
"This contradicts all principles of humanity," he said. "In Islamic law it is forbidden to mistreat a human body, whatever their religion or sect may have been. In honor of a body should be buried."
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The revered former mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Nasr Farid Wasil, spoke even louder. The procedures followed apparently by the Americans, including the lining of the body were, he said, is incorrect and "illogical."
It was followed by Abu Taha Kuraysha, a leading expert on Islamic law, which said the American procedure amounted to a "mutilation" of a dead body, "totally prohibited by Islam."
aqueous funeral Bin Laden is looking, therefore, as a kind of macabre posthumous victory. In the absence of the body in a manner acceptable to Muslims, according to its leaders, America has helped create a legend about his disdain for Islam.
On the other hand, has shown that, 10 years after the 9 / 11, has not yet come to understand even the most basic Muslim practices. The result is even more likely to distrust, at a time when it should have been a turning point, and a closing of a chapter nasty and bitter.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Abdal Hakim Murad.