Cremation or Burial ?

I have not heard a mentioning of any prophet being cremated in Qur’an or Bible. Whose custom are those cremated following ?

The cremation is defined in wikipedia as below:

 “Cremation is the process of reducing human remains to basic elements in the form of bone fragments through flame, heat, and vaporization. Contrary to popular belief, the cremated remains are not ashes in the usual sense, but rather dried bone fragments that have been pulverized in a device called an electric cremated remains processor. This leaves the bone in a fine sand like texture and colour, able to be scattered without any foreign matter.”

The cremation process has been quite popular in the western society recently. I can’t understand how some Christians  follow this process either. This process is not carried out in islamic communities. I will explain the reasons as much as I can think of here from a muslim man’s point of view. Here it goes:

People think it is environmentally friendly. This mentality says to the person that when the body is reduced to the ashes, it covers less area within the graveyard, the volume of it is the size of a pot and the smoke is filtered . The body is seen to be a source of filth or dirt for the environment and it should be destroyed and got rid of quickly. When something has completely disappeared, they think it is better and cleaner than the burial. However, our bodies are not rubbish to incinerate and burn to ashes to get rid of it like some sort of dirt. In the burials the body feeds the earth and every element(air,water,earth, fire) get their own portion. Dead body fertilizes the earth and enriches it. It creates greenness not ashes. Grass, trees and flowers blossom from it if it is buried without coffin properly. They clean the air. How many trees will be cut and made in to coffin and burnt with the bodies? 

Trying to open a space for human beings to live is not an excuse as well. I lived in istanbul which is 15 million people populated city and people are still being burried in that crowd. We are not utilizing the space on the earth properly. People own acres of gardens and big houses , spend thousands of dolars for expensive wedding ceremonies, buy expensive cars but can not afford to have a plot of grave covering  the size of their bodies. It does not seem to be right.   

Some says I would be thoughtful and would not tire my friends to come to graveyard whenever they remember me, or waste their money for flower. Nonesense, your friends may plant beatiful flowers over your grave or a nice tree for the benefit of humanity. This way they make continuous charity, every bird and human being eating from the fruit of that tree or breathing the air that tree cleansed will be a good deed for your friends after life. As well as this, a person visiting grave will take lesson out of the death and will become more careful not to hurt anyone in the life or commit evil activities if he/she is a believer.Because the death is the best reminder of this. Since the majority of the cemetaries are located outside of the cities, this shows that today’s civilisation do not want to see the death around themselves as a reminder while indulging with every type of wordly  activities…

Human body is sacred and respected within Islam, giving it to the fire is an insult to the body and the earth. It is against the manners in Islam. When a famous musician, historian, writer or a film actor dies the people turn his house in to a museum in the world. That famous person’s house is made of the similar stone as any other house but a famous person had lived in it in past. The one who occupied this house makes the house valuable. When the human dies, the soul who was the occupant, leaves the body at some stage. The body is important because of the soul. That is why it deserves a respect not fire.

A muslim saint Dr.Munir Derman was saying on his death bed “I wish I could bend and reach under my feet, I would like to kiss them and thank to them. Because they have carried me along my life”.

Muslims wash the body before the burial and treats the body respectfully like a flower. Prophet Muhammad(SAW) used to cut his finger nails and burry them in the earth. Nail is a part of the human body and it is sacred as the body it’s self. God’s beautiful names(Esma Al Husna) manifests within the body of a humanbeing. So every cell of the body is sacred because of it.

Perhaps that is the reason that Prophet Muhammad(SAW) was burying his nails to show this fact. Some saints in islam advises the people to have ablution before cutting their nails. If the nails are that important, you can imagine the rest of the body. As well as that, in Adam(A.S)’s creation ,earth was used in his mixture. Many things we eat come from the earth. That is why the body which was borrowed from the earth needs to be given back to the earth after the death. Cremation is disrespectful to the earth and to God. In the end the body is going to return to earth even if it is cremated but the act of giving it to the fire is disrespectful and wrong and not appropriate in islam.

Qur’an 20- 55:“From the (earth) did We create you, and into it shall We return you, and from it shall We bring you out once again.”

Some people not taking the death seriously, thinks that it is a source of freedom for their soul to fly wherever their ashes could be blown with the wind. This is a mere fantasy which does not have any supportive evidence from a God given book e.g Qur’an, bible or torah. We can not follow fantasies of the people who do not understand divine laws.

Some other people think that it is a way of escape from responsibility for their sins. When the body is burnt , there is nobody to question. That is why , some people want to be non-existent so that they would not face the questioning. This mentality forgets the existence of the soul but at the same time believes the existence of God. If they were not afraid of God, they would not think of that way. If they think of it that way, they should understand that God who created human body from nothingness has the power to resurrect it. So they should repent and start acting in accordance with the laws of God while they are stil alive.

Qur’an 75/3.Does man think that We cannot assemble his bones? 75/4. Nay, We are able to put together in perfect order the very tips of his fingers.75/5.But man wishes to do wrong (even) in the time in front of him.

Materialism also pushes the people in to choosing the cremation.  Many people choose it because it is cost effective.  Funeral ceremony is expensive and it costs a lot of money to the people to buy coffins made of special wood. Materialistic mentality attached hundreds of unnecessary things in to funeral processions just as in wedding ceremonies, and pushed the cost of funeral processions up. While some rich people shows off with the expensive funeral processions and plan their funeral process by ordering special coffins, suits, funeral service and banquets before they die, many other people feel ashamed to bury their deceased when they can not provide an expensive funeral service due to their economic condition.

In fact, in islam it is opposite, the coffin is made of  simple wood which is cheap and it is only used to transfer  the body to the grave. The body is shrouded and put in to grave. You do not need to pay a lot of money for unnecessary things, and the burying is a simple process. Muslims don’t give so much importance to the outside of the graves. Grave Stones do not have to be made from special marbles or stones, the coffin is not burried with the body. Funeral process includes the actions that have hundreds of deep meanings for the people visiting it. What is important for the muslims is to be burried appropriately and to die in a state of faith. What is happenning to the one in that body is another matter, and the answer for that will be given after the burial process.

God taught us how to deal with dead body with an incident mentioned in Cain and Abel’s story in holy books. They were two sons of Prophet Adam(PBUH. When Cain killed his brother, he did not know what to do with his brother’s body. A raven was sent to show him how to deal with dead body. The method is mentioned in Qur’an:

Qur’an 5/31.Then Allah sent a raven scratching up the ground, to show him how to hide his brother’s naked corpse. He said: Woe unto me! Am I not able to be as this raven and so hide my brother’s naked corpse? And he became repentant.

We have many sayings of prophet Muhammad(PBUH) who talked about what happens after death, questioning in the grave etc. The soul does not depart from the body immediately after the death, until the questioning in the grave is completed. The soul can hear the sounds of people around the grave. I don’t know what happens when you burn the body in this condition. The death does not mean that someone disappears completely. The death is a transition process. That is why, God tells us in Qur’an:

Qur’an 21/35.Every soul shall have a taste of death: and we test you by evil and by good by way of trial. To us must be return.

In here, the term “to taste of death” is used by God in order to draw attention to an experience or a transition not  disappearance. If anyone wants to have this experience inside the fire, I would say good luck to him.

If you look in to more about the disadvantages of cremation process especially Hindu ones read the chapter 18, between 499 and 508 from the book of famous Sufi Saint Bawa Muhaiyaddeen(rh.a) in following link:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LuKpxQ_RNr8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=resonance+of+Allah#PPP1,M1

Also read his other book, “to die before death” on the following link:  http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WJG1q26hy0EC&pg=PP1&dq=to+die+before+death

Be careful about Bawa Muhaiyaddeen’s language, some things are literal , somethings are meaningfull parables…

We should follow what is shown to us by God, not our own minds or scientists’ replenishing theories or the fantasies of the people who lived an empty life on this earth. Our lives  and our bodies are meaningfull to us. We want it to be returned to the earth as we were created from earth. Let the each element take their own portion. We are made of earth,are living on the earth, eating from it’s production,walking over it along our lives. We dirty it with our excrement, it hides our dirt and still gives us nice things in return. God has made it like a mother for us. We owe to it and it will be the one hiding our bodies in it as well. Burrying death also has deep meanings and messages. When you burry a seed in to earth, it gives many sprouts, it is a message for humanbeing about the death. But what sort of seeds did you collect in your life time? A thorny thistle or a rose? Crop of the burial of deceased are harvested in the unseen.

A muslim saint Dr.Munir Derman says” when a photographer takes a photo, that photo is developed in a darkroom. The film is put in to a chemical and after that the picture appears”. The grave is a darkroom where what we collected within us in this life will be shown to us after being developed like a film negative. The grave has many deep meanings which I can not count here one by one. The death is not a simple process, my friends . How light are we taking the death, I can not understand the people. I would also advise the reading of book of Imam Al-Ghazali( Rememberance of Death and afterlife:  http://www.amazon.com/Al-Ghazali-Remembrance-Death-Afterlife-Religious/dp/0946621098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238210937&sr=8-1)

Qur’an 102/01.The mutual rivalry for piling up (the good things of this world) diverts you (from the more serious things),

102/2.Until ye visit the graves.

102/3.But nay, ye soon shall know (the reality).

102/4.Again, ye soon shall know!

102/5.Nay, were ye to know with certainty of mind, (ye would beware!)…

What is the meaning of the term grave in this verse(102/2)?

What is the meaning of the mutual rivalry(takathur)in this verse(102/01)? There are so many graves and coffins to think about!…

Indeed, the grave is either one of the pits of the fires of Hell, or a garden out of the gardens of Paradise…

Our body is one of those graves!…

People need to seriously give a grave decision about this cremation process!…  

Barbaros Sert

Basildon-UK

Finally, I would like to attach the following words of Dr.Munir Derman(K.S) which I find very effecting.

DR. MUNIR DERMAN’s LAST WORDS ON HIS TOMB STONE

I owe only a body to the earth

I paid my debt.

My Spirit does not owe to the earth

Do not seek for me in the earth, I am somewhere else.

My earth was pure, I  submit my debt cleanly

This grave is the place of separation for my spirit and body

Do not seek (for me) here, I am not here.

I am neither in the tormet, nor in the fire(naar).

I don’t have any hardship, I am not hungry and poor.

I lived in friendship with unfairness, poverty, hunger,

hardship and troubles in the world.

I have not complained about my Rabb(Lord), saying “what is this?”.

I was friends with forties, sevens, fours and threes.

I met, talked and shared my troubles with Hidir on the world…

I have not complained about my own state.

Do not hassle your nafs, this is not a war.

That is the essence of the torment in the grave.

Leave your nafs to it’s own  device

Do not hassle it, this does not suit you

Body, nafs, spirit are different one by one.

Do not hook them up by mixing them with each other

Nafs remain in the world, and the body is in the earth

The spirit(rooh) goes to it’s Rabb who is it’s origin(asl),

Do not seek here, I am not here.

I am neither in the tormet, nor in the fire. 

I don’t have any hardship , I am not hungry and poor.

I gave my body to the earth, I am not a debtor

The trouble of my nafs has also remained in the world.

Do not upset your self, I am like you too .

I am as if flying beside my Rabb(Lord)

Dr. Münir Derman