Burying more than one corpse in one grave

11-9-2007 | IslamWeb

Question:

As salam alai kum, i need a advice ..my friends father died 16months ago and now last month his cousin sister died age 13years and burried her in the same grave of my friends father. Here they did not put the bones together ,it was scattered all over the grave. now he sees his father in dreams saying u hve destroyed my house and seen in pain. Please advice what should be the procedure when we are using the same grave for others.should we put the bones together near the head of the new decased.please advce.

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Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

 

We have already issued Fatwa 90042 clarifying that in principle the grave is to be used for one dead person and that it should not be dug up except for a necessity. We also clarified in the Fatwa that in case where more than one deceased person is buried in one grave, it is a condition that the first corpse should have been transformed into earth, then whatever is left from the bones of the first dead body would be gathered into one side, and the new dead would be buried in the other side, and that it is desirable to put a partition between the two.

Nonetheless, it should be mentioned that dreams do not imply any religious rulings.

Based on the above, that girl should not have been buried with that man as there was no necessity for doing so. However, since this has already happened, do not dig the grave once again as this violates the honour of the dead.

You will find answers in the above-referred Fatwa to the other questions which you asked. 

Allaah Knows best.