Cremation where Muslim burial is opposed

A question about cremation where Muslim burial is opposed, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that cremating a corpse is forbidden because it degrades the dead and violates their dignity, and that a way must be found to bury the dead according to the Shari'a, even by moving the body to another area. ¹

Muslims living in a foreign country where the dead are cremated, and where some local residents object to Muslim burials, asked whether cremation is forbidden if they are forced into it. ¹

The Department answered that Islam honours the human being alive and dead, including by washing, shrouding, praying over and burying the dead, citing Surat al-Isra' 17:70 and a hadith narrated by Abu Dawud in his Sunan whose meaning is that breaking a dead person's bone is like breaking it while alive. ¹ It said burning the corpse is forbidden because it harms, demeans and degrades the dead and erases the features of the body, noting that jurists disallowed carrying out retaliation in a way that ruins the body, and quoting al-Juwayni in Nihayat al-Matlab (16/147) that some Shafi'is disallowed retaliation by poison to protect the corpse, since the body of the dead is inviolable. ¹ It concluded that a way must be found to bury the dead in accordance with the Shari'a, even if that requires moving the body to another area where burial is possible. ¹

Jordan's General Iftaa Department published this fatwa on aliftaa.jo as no. 4482, dated 15 June 2026. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.