ORLAND PARK, Unwell. — Kifah Mustapha, the imam at Orland Park Prayer Heart, wasn’t stunned when a petition protesting the concept of a Muslim cemetery within the space started circulating.
Mustapha and leaders from different mosques within the suburbs of Chicago had anticipated resistance. That they had seen the xenophobic and racist reactions that different mosques had gotten when making an attempt to construct cemeteries the place Muslims may very well be buried based on Islamic custom.
When the backlash got here for his mosque, Mustapha was prepared. He had quietly utilized for all of the permits and licenses wanted to buy and develop the land, had efficiently fundraised the quantity wanted to develop the cemetery and had employed a high legislation agency that would step in if wanted.
Critics locally did what they might to cease the cemetery from being constructed, claiming it will deliver pointless site visitors to the realm, lower property values and have an effect on the realm’s consuming water.
These reactions weren’t in contrast to the anti-mosque uproar of the early 2000s, when Muslim People confronted vehement opposition to constructing new locations of worship. Non-Muslim residents used zoning ordinances as a pretext to masks Islamophobic opposition to the rising Muslim inhabitants of their communities.
And Muslim People have more and more confronted resistance whereas burying their family members. Proposed Muslim cemeteries throughout the nation have been topic to protests, on-line petitions and town-hall conferences jammed with indignant residents. JHB has documented greater than two dozen incidents the place folks protested the development of a Muslim cemetery in states throughout the nation. Some states, like Illinois, noticed a number of incidents. Different Muslim communities had their cemeteries vandalized or damaged into.
“Each group had its personal wrestle, from the Irish to the Jewish group, to the Black and Latino group, so Muslims are not any exception,” Mustapha stated. “However this goes towards what this nation is all about. We’ve the Structure and legal guidelines that shield the rights of a citizen as a person or as a group.”
Mustafa Hussain for JHB
Located about 40 minutes exterior of Chicago, the Orland Park Prayer Heart serves a group of practically 30,000 Muslims, the overwhelming majority of whom are of Palestinian descent. The three-floor mosque’s golden dome, made to mimic the Dome of the Rock at Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, may be seen for miles down. Blue and gold calligraphy strains the perimeter of the prayer corridor.
A college, seen from the mosque’s home windows, hosts Saturday faculty and a full-time day care that’s already at capability. The mosque will probably be opening a psychological well being clinic this summer season, which will probably be accessible for anybody to go to, together with these not a part of the native Muslim group.
However the prayer heart didn’t have a cemetery, and the part of the predominantly Christian cemetery the place native Muslims had been buried had run out of house. The one mosque within the space outfitted to deal with Muslim funeral providers — together with the standard rituals of washing and shrouding the physique — couldn’t sustain with the demand.
As an alternative of shopping for one other phase in a mixed-faith cemetery, group leaders, together with Mustapha, determined it was time to determine a Muslim one. The plan for the Muslim Ummah Cemetery started in 2020, and the mosque quickly bought a 40-acre plot of land.
Reserving the cemetery for Muslims solely would permit Muslims to be buried at any time, with out having to depend on one other individual to open the gravesite — an essential function, since Islamic custom states that folks needs to be buried inside 24 hours of dying.
Muslims don’t permit embalming, the method of injecting a corpse with chemical compounds to cease the physique from decaying. In addition they bury our bodies in a white cotton shroud, with none caskets or coffins, to symbolize that individuals are born with none materials gadgets.
Such burials are environmentally pleasant, Mustapha stated, noting that some other group opening an eco-friendly cemetery would in all probability be celebrated.
“That’s the place the scent of racism is available in,” Mustapha stated. “If it’s Muslims, it’s an issue.”
Folks within the space pushed again towards the plan to open a Muslim cemetery, and a petition questioning “how the prosperity of the group will probably be affected” garnered over 1,500 signatures.
A city corridor in Might 2023 additionally introduced out fierce critics, with greater than 200 folks in attendance, most of them towards the cemetery. They known as Muslim burial practices unsanitary, claiming the burials would contaminate native water wells.
Neither the county nor the state’s public well being businesses discovered credible public well being considerations, and the mosque was capable of transfer ahead with its plans to develop a cemetery. The Muslim cemetery opened final November, and greater than two dozen Muslims have been buried there to this point.
Map: MSJONESNYC for JHB
Throughout the nation, Muslim teams have confronted related backlash over constructing a cemetery.
JHB documented 9 situations of Muslim teams suing over their proper to bury their useless.
In 2020, a Muslim nonprofit accepted a $500,000 settlement from Stafford County, Virginia, after native officers there blocked a mosque’s makes an attempt to assemble a cemetery. A yr prior in 2019, the Division of Justice filed its personal lawsuit towards the county over its try to dam the cemetery’s development.
In Texas, a metropolis council halted plans in 2015 for a Muslim cemetery after folks threatened to dump pig’s blood on the location and accused it of being a canopy for an extremist coaching camp. The Muslim group sued and the DOJ stepped in, saying metropolis employees needed to adjust to federal legislation, which shield people, homes of worship and different non secular establishments from discrimination in zoning and land use legal guidelines.
“There isn’t any place in our group for non secular discrimination,” U.S. Lawyer Joseph D. Brown stated in 2019, in saying a settlement in that case. “Our workplace is dedicated to defending non secular freedom.”
In Minnesota, an eight-year authorized battle ensued when the native Muslim group tried to construct a cemetery in Fort Rock. After a number of allow rejections, the Al Maghfirah Cemetery Affiliation sued the native township and received in 2017. The property was additionally vandalized: In a single occasion, the partitions of a constructing on the property had been spray-painted with swastikas and a message that stated, “Go away, you R useless.”
Muslim cemeteries in North Dakota, California and Washington state have been vandalized.
Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis by way of Getty Photos
In New York, which has one of many largest — and rising — Muslim populations within the nation, a battle over a Muslim cemetery is ongoing. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, many locally made a grim realization: Muslims had been working out of house to bury their family members in designated sections of cemeteries. New Yorkers had been pressured to look exterior their state, typically driving practically two hours to bury their family members in New Jersey and Connecticut.
As COVID-19 deaths climbed, the Hillside Islamic Heart in New Hyde Park started to name different mosques and ask if they’d accessible plots in close by graveyards. Many Muslims couldn’t be buried in accordance with the timeline spelled out by Islamic custom, as many cemeteries are closed on weekends or holidays.
Burying Muslims based on their religion grew to become a problem, typically leading to additional grief for his or her households. Prices had been additionally skyrocketing. Households had been paying practically $10,000 to bury family members on the Washington Memorial Cemetery, a close-by graveyard that had a Muslim part.
“We’re tax-paying residents of this state. We contribute but we now have no place to bury our useless,” stated Abdul Aziz Bhuiyan, who chairs the Hillside Islamic Heart as nicely because the Muslim Group of Nassau County, an umbrella group for the native mosques within the county.
“We as a group shouldn’t undergo this. We’ve been residing right here for a protracted, very long time,” he added. “I can not think about after I die my youngsters must undergo all of this.”
In March 2023, the Hillside Islamic Heart purchased and signed a contract for a 14-acre land in Bellport, an hour’s drive from the mosque, embarking on its plan to open the primary Muslim-only cemetery in New York.
The land itself prices roughly $2 million, and one other $2 million will probably be wanted to organize it — slicing down the bushes, paying for inspections, hiring legal professionals and designers. The prices to mourners will probably be minimal, roughly round $2,000 per burial, and the mosque plans to supply monetary support to those that can not afford it.
“This isn’t a enterprise enterprise,” Bhuiyan stated.
However Bhuiyan knew that different communities have confronted challenges when making an attempt to open their very own cemeteries, together with in New York. Zoning ordinances have additionally made the enterprise difficult, as does bias and prejudice towards Muslims within the state.
In 2010, native residents and city officers in Sidney, New York triggered a nationwide uproar once they protested a Muslim group heart’s cemetery, and even demanded that the Muslims dig up the stays.
When Bhuiyan met with elected officers to current their plan for a cemetery, he stated he was greeted with disdain and interrogated about noise ranges from funerals.
“Muslim burial is the quietest burial that you should have. No noise, no fanfare, no music, nothing,” he recalled telling them.
Bhuiyan submitted the plans to the native township board three months in the past, however the city has but to schedule a gathering with their architect or legal professional. He has no alternative however to maintain ready.
“It’s one thing so inhumane for anybody to [feel,] ‘I’m right here doing all of this, working and contributing to the betterment of the group and the betterment of the state, and but when my beloved one dies, there isn’t any place for me to bury them,’” Bhuiyan stated. Stress over burying relations could make an emotional time even more durable to navigate, he stated.
Mustafa Hussain for JHB
In Orland Park, the Muslim group has plans to develop its new cemetery, together with constructing its personal funeral service facility on the premises that will supply providers equivalent to transporting, washing and shrouding our bodies. The mosque at present has to lease burial tools, together with the equipment to dig graves, although the group hopes to hopes to purchase its personal.
However Mustapha isn’t fearful about these prices. He’s extra involved about these exterior the group recognizing the significance of religion traditions as a way to offer consolation and help to a grieving neighbor.
“We’ve sure ritual traditions for celebration and joyful moments. However when one is heavy, of loss and grief, the rituals grow to be extra essential to deliver ease to the sorrows of a person,” he stated. “The identical approach others search it in their very own cultures and faith, then it needs to be the identical for us.”
This story was produced with help from the Spherical Earth Media program of the Worldwide Ladies’s Media Basis.