Burials without coffin to follow the Muslim tradition | Society
Surrounded with a sheet and in direct contact with the earth, buried without coffin and without waiting 24 hours after his death. This is the Muslim funeral rite that collides with the autonomic legislation of most of the communities: burials and coffin cremations not before a day passes since the death. Only several regions allow the Islamic tradition: Andalusia, Asturias, Valencia and the cities of Ceuta and Melilla. Now, Castilla y León joins with a project to amend Decree 16/2005 that regulates the health policy of the community. "For confessional reasons, burials may be carried out directly on land, provided that the conditions determined by the General Directorate responsible for mortuary health police" are met. pick up the text, submitted to the period of allegations until February 25.
"We are in an initial phase." The approval of this text aims to give the possibility to bury himself according to his rite to those people with other beliefs. Once these changes in the legislation have been adopted, there will be a second phase, in which a regulation will be created on the technical method to be followed in these inhumations ", Francisco Corzo explained. head of community health management. These technical aspects include the conditions of isolation of the pit, the depth to which it must be located, the separation between the corpses and the hydrogeological study of the land to avoid filtrations of leachates. This new burial service can only benefit people who have not died as a result of a disease of easy and rapid transmission because that would represent a risk to public health, says Corzo.
These changes are compounded by the reduction in the waiting time set by the law before the burial, currently not before 24 hours after the death, an aspect that has been controversial also among Catholics and other confessions. The mortuary legislation is transferred from the State to the autonomies, although it is the City Councils that have direct jurisdiction over the municipal cemeteries, for which it will be the León people who will have to cede the land for these new cemeteries.
Another of the traditions of the Muslim rite is the placement of the corpse in the tomb tilted on the right side and face facing Mecca (Saudi Arabia), the most important holy city of the Islamic religion. The deceased, moreover, can not lie in the same place where people of other confessions are buried. This point was addressed in the cooperation agreements of the State with the Islamic Commission of Spain, in which the Islamic communities are recognized "the right to grant parcels reserved for Islamic burials in municipal cemeteries, as well as the right to possessing their own Islamic cemeteries, taking appropriate measures to observe the traditional Islamic rules regarding burials, burials and funeral rites (...) subject to the provisions of local legislation and health legislation ", it appears highlighted in the document.
In Spain live about two million Muslims and there are only about thirty plots in the different municipalities for these burials and only a few can be buried directly in the land. Reason why, although contrary to the Islamic precept that advises not to transfer the remains of the deceased to a different city from where he died, they decide to move the corpses to be buried in their countries of origin. In other fields, such as the Madrilenian town of Griñón, the Muslim communities adapt their tradition to the current law. "Inside the coffin they throw dirt so that the dead person is in contact with her as the custom dictates," explains the town's mayor, José María Porras.
