They Desperately Wanted To Build A Muslim Cemetery. Then Came The Backlash.

ORLAND PARK, Ill. Kifah Mustapha, the imam at Orland Park Prayer Center, wasnt surprised when a petition protesting the idea of a Muslim cemetery in the area began circulating. 

Mustapha and leaders from other mosques in the suburbs of Chicago had anticipated resistance. They had seen the xenophobic and racist reactions that other mosques had gotten when trying to build cemeteries where Muslims could be buried according to Islamic tradition. 

When the backlash came for his mosque, Mustapha was ready. He had quietly applied for all the permits and licenses needed to purchase and develop the land, had successfully fundraised the amount needed to develop the cemetery and had hired a top law firm that could step in if needed. 

Critics in the community did what they could to stop the cemetery from being built, claiming it would bring unnecessary traffic to the area, decrease property values and affect the areas drinking water. 

Those reactions were not unlike the anti-mosque uproar of the early 2000s, when Muslim Americans faced vehement opposition to building new places of worship. Non-Muslim residents used zoning ordinances as a pretext to mask Islamophobic opposition to the growing Muslim population in their communities. 

And Muslim Americans have increasingly faced resistance while burying their loved ones. Proposed Muslim cemeteries across the country have been subject to protests, online petitions and town-hall meetings jammed with angry residents. HuffPost has documented more than two dozen incidents where people protested the construction of a Muslim cemetery in states across the country. Some states, like Illinois, saw multiple incidents. Other Muslim communities had their cemeteries vandalized or broken into.

Every community had its own struggle, from the Irish to the Jewish community, to the Black and Latino community, so Muslims are no exception, Mustapha said. But this goes against what this country is all about. We have the Constitution and laws that protect the rights of a citizen as an individual or as a community.

Situated about 40 minutes outside of Chicago, the Orland Park Prayer Center serves a community of nearly 30,000 Muslims, the vast majority of whom are of Palestinian descent. The three-floor mosques golden dome, made to imitate the Dome of the Rock at Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, can be seen for miles down. Blue and gold calligraphy lines the perimeter of the prayer hall.

A school, visible from the mosques windows, hosts Saturday school and a full-time day care that is already at capacity. The mosque will be opening a mental health clinic this summer, which will be available for anyone to visit, including those not part of the local Muslim community.

But the prayer center did not have a cemetery, and the section of the predominantly Christian cemetery where local Muslims had been buried had run out of space. The only mosque in the area equipped to handle Muslim funeral services including the traditional rituals of washing and shrouding the body couldnt keep up with the demand.

Instead of buying another segment in a mixed-faith cemetery, community leaders, including Mustapha, decided it was time to establish a Muslim one. The plan for the Muslim Ummah Cemetery began in 2020, and the mosque soon purchased a 40-acre plot of land. 

Reserving the cemetery for Muslims only would allow Muslims to be buried at any time, without having to rely on another person to open the gravesite an important feature, since Islamic tradition states that people should be buried within 24 hours of dying. 

Muslims dont allow embalming, the process of injecting a corpse with chemicals to stop the body from decaying. They also bury bodies in a white cotton shroud, without any caskets or coffins, to represent that people are born without any material items. 

Such burials are environmentally friendly, Mustapha said, noting that any other community opening an eco-friendly cemetery would probably be celebrated. 

Thats where the scent of racism comes in, Mustapha said. If its Muslims, its a problem.

People in the area pushed back against the plan to open a Muslim cemetery, and a petition questioning how the prosperity of the community will be affected garnered over 1,500 signatures.  

A town hall in May 2023 also brought out fierce critics, with more than 200 people in attendance, most of them against the cemetery. They called Muslim burial practices unsanitary, claiming the burials would contaminate local water wells. 

Neither the county nor the states public health agencies found credible public health concerns, and the mosque was able to move forward with its plans to develop a cemetery. The Muslim cemetery opened last November, and more than two dozen Muslims have been buried there so far.

Across the country, Muslim groups have faced similar backlash over building a cemetery. 

HuffPost documented nine instances of Muslim groups suing over their right to bury their dead.

In 2020, a Muslim nonprofit accepted a $500,000 settlement from Stafford County, Virginia, after local officials there blocked a mosques attempts to construct a cemetery. A year prior in 2019, the Department of Justice filed its own lawsuit against the county over its attempt to block the cemeterys construction.

In Texas, a city council halted plans in 2015 for a Muslim cemetery after people threatened to dump pigs blood on the site and accused it of being a cover for an extremist training camp. The Muslim community sued and the DOJ stepped in, saying city workers had to comply with federal law, which protect individuals, houses of worship and other religious institutions from discrimination in zoning and land use laws.

There is no place in our community for religious discrimination, U.S. Attorney Joseph D. Brown said in 2019, in announcing a settlement in that case. Our office is committed to protecting religious freedom.  

In Minnesota, an eight-year legal battle ensued when the local Muslim community tried to build a cemetery in Castle Rock. After multiple permit rejections, the Al Maghfirah Cemetery Association sued the local township and won in 2017. The property was also vandalized : In one instance, the walls of a building on the property were spray-painted with swastikas and a message that said, Leave, you R dead. 

Muslim cemeteries in North Dakota , California and Washington state have been vandalized. 

In New York, which has one of the largest and growing Muslim populations in the country, a battle over a Muslim cemetery is ongoing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many in the community made a grim realization: Muslims were running out of space to bury their loved ones in designated sections of cemeteries. New Yorkers were forced to look outside their state, often driving nearly two hours to bury their loved ones in New Jersey and Connecticut. 

As COVID-19 deaths climbed, the Hillside Islamic Center in New Hyde Park began to call other mosques and ask if they had available plots in nearby graveyards. Many Muslims could not be buried in accordance with the timeline spelled out by Islamic tradition, as many cemeteries are closed on weekends or holidays. 

Burying Muslims according to their faith became a challenge, often resulting in further grief for their families. Costs were also skyrocketing. Families were paying nearly $10,000 to bury loved ones at the Washington Memorial Cemetery, a nearby graveyard that had a Muslim section.

We are tax-paying citizens of this state. We make contributions yet we have no place to bury our dead, said Abdul Aziz Bhuiyan, who chairs the Hillside Islamic Center as well as the Muslim Community of Nassau County, an umbrella organization for the local mosques in the county.

We as a community should not go through this. We have been living here for a long, long time, he added. I cannot imagine when I die my children have to go through all of this.

In March 2023, the Hillside Islamic Center bought and signed a contract for a 14-acre land in Bellport, an hours drive from the mosque, embarking on its plan to open the first Muslim-only cemetery in New York.

The land itself costs roughly $2 million, and another $2 million will be needed to prepare it  cutting down the trees, paying for inspections, hiring lawyers and architects. The costs to mourners will be minimal, roughly around $2,000 per burial, and the mosque plans to offer financial aid to those who cannot afford it. 

This is not a business venture, Bhuiyan said. 

But Bhuiyan knew that other communities have faced challenges when trying to open their own cemeteries, including in New York. Zoning ordinances have also made the venture challenging, as does bias and prejudice against Muslims in the state.

In 2010, local residents and town officials in Sidney, New York caused a national uproar when they protested a Muslim community centers cemetery, and even demanded that the Muslims dig up the remains .

When Bhuiyan met with elected officials to present their plan for a cemetery, he said he was greeted with disdain and interrogated about noise levels from funerals.

Muslim burial is the quietest burial that you will have. No noise, no fanfare, no music, nothing, he recalled telling them. 

Bhuiyan submitted the plans to the local township board three months ago, but the town has yet to schedule a meeting with their architect or attorney. He has no choice but to keep waiting.

It is something so inhumane for anyone to [feel,] I am here doing all of this, working and contributing to the betterment of the community and the betterment of the state, and yet when my loved one dies, there is no place for me to bury them, Bhuiyan said. Stress over burying family members can make an emotional time even harder to navigate, he said. 

In Orland Park, the Muslim community has plans to expand its new cemetery, including building its own funeral service facility on the premises that would offer services such as transporting, washing and shrouding bodies. The mosque currently has to rent burial equipment, including the machinery to dig graves, though the community hopes to hopes to buy its own.

But Mustapha is not worried about those costs. He is more concerned about those outside the community recognizing the importance of faith traditions as a means to provide comfort and support to a grieving neighbor.

We have certain ritual traditions for celebration and joyful moments. But when one is heavy, of loss and grief, the rituals become more important to bring ease to the sorrows of an individual, he said. The same way others seek it in their own cultures and religion, then it should be the same for us.

This story was produced with support from the Round Earth Media program of the International Womens Media Foundation.