Hindu Cremation Angers US Bangladeshi Muslims

Had it been in Bangladesh or India, these violent Muslims would have used it as an excuse indulge in arson, murder and bloody riots.

Hindu Cremation Angers US Muslims
IslamOnline.net & Newspapers

CAIRO — A decision by a US family of Bangladeshi origin to cremate their Muslim son in the Hindu tradition, not according to Islamic teachings, has angered American Muslims, reported The New York Times on Saturday, October 4.
“It is our job to bury him in the Muslim way,” said Junnun Choudhury, secretary of the Jamaica Muslim Center at the New York city.

Shafayet Reja, a 22-year-old Muslim, died in a car accident last month while returning from a Ramadan iftar at Stony Brook’s Muslim Students Association.

Immediately, his Hindu mother and Muslim father decided to cremate his body in Hindu tradition.

Reja, who graduated from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2007, was studying to be a licensed insurance broker.

Some of Reja’s close friends said that he told them about his wish to have a Muslim burial.

“It was the community’s business because the community knew he (Reja) was a Muslim,” said Choudhury.

In Islam, cremation is prohibited as it is disrespectful to the dead body and Islam calls for respecting human beings whether alive or dead.

It is an obligation on Muslims as a community to ensure that every Muslim who dies is properly washed, shrouded, and buried according to the teachings of Islam.

The Muslim minority in the US is estimated between six to seven million.

Family Choice
Reja’s parents insist that the burial of their son was a private issue.

“This is a family decision,” Farhad, the mother, said.

“This is America.”

The family says that the Muslim protest against their son’s cremation was a violation of their civil rights.

“We have freedom of religion, and we have the Constitution,” said the Rejas’ son Mishal, 19, who studies at Washington University in St. Louis.

“Why would they bother us? It’s none of their business. Even if he was the most hard-core Muslim.”

The family had turned down pleas by several American Muslims to reverse their  decision to cremate the Muslim son.

Furthermore, the family filed a complaint with the Police Department’s hate crimes unit alleging that some Muslims accosted them at their son’s funeral and threatened to boycott and bomb their shopping center in Jackson Heights, Queens.

But Muslims, who protested against the family decision, refuted the claims.

“(We did not call for boycott, but protesting the cremation was) a social obligation and a religious obligation,” said Zakaria Masud, Secretary of the Jackson Heights Bangladeshi Business Association.