Sea burial of Osama bin Laden breaks sharia law, say Muslim scholars

[oberliner]

Excerpt:

Dr Saud al-Fanisan, former dean of the faculty of sharia law in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, said that if a body was buried at sea it should be protected from fish. In the words of alislam.org, the body should be lowered into the water "in a vessel of clay or with a weight tied to its feet".

Mohammed al-Qubaisi, Dubai's grand mufti, said of Bin Laden's burial: "They can say they buried him at sea, but they cannot say they did it according to Islam. Sea burials are permissible for Muslims in extraordinary circumstances. This is not one of them."

Abdul-Sattar al-Janabi, who preaches at Baghdad's Abu Hanifa mosque, said: "What was done by the Americans is forbidden by Islam and might provoke some Muslims. It is not acceptable and it is almost a crime to throw the body of a Muslim man into the sea. The body of Bin Laden should have been handed over to his family to look for a country to bury him."

The radical Lebanon-based cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed said: "The Americans want to humiliate Muslims through this burial, and I don't think this is in the interest of the US administration."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/02/sea-burial-osama-bin-laden