Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Osama bin Laden's Burial

A day after the death of Osama bin Laden, details are coming out regarding his assassination. He was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, an affluent suburb outside Islamabad by U.S Special Forces. His body was identified and then quickly buried at sea. Now the burial is what I want to question.

Why?

Islamic practices require a burial on land in a grave with the head pointed toward the holy city of Mecca. Even I, a non-Muslim, know that. There is no sea burial in Islam expect for special cases like when death occurred aboard a ship that’s far from land. Osama bin Laden was killed on land miles from the sea. A sea burial for him is just asking for trouble! Most Muslims will see it as an insult. Now the Americans probably do not want his burial site to be a shrine for Islamic militants but bin Laden is so well-known that I don’t see how his grave site would be more trouble than a sea burial.

A sea burial, without a body, would stroke anger at America, but a grave would be showing respect to an enemy. It could have been a PR coup. But now, his burial will become a problem. Even dead, Osama bin Laden will be a thorn in America’s side.

2 comments:

Gar said...

Are you sure?

I have Muslim friends and they are not very happy with the way the terrorists behave when they use their religion as an "excuse" to murder.

If we took the time to bury him "properly" or take care that he was afforded a proper Islam burial, we may have kept our enemies as enemies but provoked our Muslim allies.

All you are saying is we may have further provoked our enemies (*shrug*).

Having said all of that, I don't really care. I agree with your earlier post. This "assassination" did nothing.

Ghost said...

Your Muslim friends are against Osama already. A proper burial for Osama would properly not matter to them but it would matter to Osama's followers and people who agree with his views.
You are right in that they are enemies of the US but if burying Osama can lower the temperature...why not? The man is already dead right.