aaa

Is It Permissible to Bury Men and Women in the Same Grave?

17 January, 2020
Q Dear scholar, I have a question for you. Is it permissible in Islam to bury men and women in the same grave?

Answer

Dr. Jasser Auda
17 January, 2020

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. 

All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.

In this fatwa:

The Sunnah is to separate individuals in their graves according to their gender unless there is a necessity.

Answering your question about burying men and women in the same grave, Dr. Jasser Auda, Professor and Al-Shatibi Chair of Maqasid Studies at the International Peace College South Africa, states:

The Sunnah is to bury men and women in different graves. However, if there is a necessity in a time of war or a time of civil unrest that is a different story. The Sunnah is to separate individuals in their graves according to their gender.

The issue of graves depends on the culture. There were two cultures at the time of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him); i.e. the culture of the people in Makkah and the culture of the people of Madinah

The culture in Makkah had open areas under the grounds where dead bodies were put. The culture in Madinah used to dig for every dead body by itself.  The cultures differ but the separation of the dead bodies, unless there is a necessity, is the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad.

Almighty Allah knows best.

Funeral Prayer salat al-janazah Muslim cemetery Burying men and women together Muslim graveyards rituals of funerals in Islam
About Dr. Jasser Auda
Jasser Auda is a Professor and Al-Shatibi Chair of Maqasid Studies at the International Peace College South Africa, the Executive Director of the Maqasid Institute, a global think tank based in London, and a Visiting Professor of Islamic Law at Carleton University in Canada. He is a Founding and Board Member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, Member of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, Fellow of the Islamic Fiqh Academy of India, and General Secretary of Yaqazat Feker, a popular youth organization in Egypt. He has a PhD in the philosophy of Islamic law from University of Wales in the UK, and a PhD in systems analysis from University of Waterloo in Canada. Early in his life, he memorized the Quran and studied Fiqh, Usul and Hadith in the halaqas of Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo. He previously worked as: Founding Director of the Maqasid Center in the Philosophy of Islamic Law in London; Founding Deputy Director of the Center for Islamic Ethics in Doha; professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada, Alexandria University in Egypt, Islamic University of Novi Pazar in Sanjaq, Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies, and the American University of Sharjah. He lectured and trained on Islam, its law, spirituality and ethics in dozens of other universities and organizations around the world. He wrote 25 books in Arabic and English, some of which were translated to 25 languages.