Religion at the cemetery Islamic Burials in the Netherlands and Belgium

Abstract

Death, dying, and burial are not only matters restricted to the experiences and emotions of an individual, but also social events. The rituals that accompany these events are central to the identities and meanings that groups construct for themselves. They can be viewed as windows that open out onto the ways societies view themselves and the world around them (Gardner, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 24: 507–521, 1998). One of the themes this article takes up is that of the enforcement of legal and religious regulations with regard to death and burial among Muslims in the Netherlands and Belgium. If the practice of burial rituals and regulations is used as a “window,” this opens the way to make an elaboration of the established fact that the choice of where to be buried is not only a matter of being well informed about all the practical, legal, and religious possibilities and impossibilities. It is also (or maybe more so) a matter of how Muslims view themselves and the society of which they are part.