A heated debate is taking place in the town of Dudley in rural Massachusetts over a proposed Islamic cemetery which may be built on 55 acres of old farmland. Members of the Islamic community in the US often face difficulty in building mosques to cater for increasing numbers of worshippers, but this case is a little different.
Often, the opposition to mosque building comes from anti-Islam groups protesting what they fear will be radicalization and extremism in Islamic places of worship, however in the case of the Dudley cemetery, locals claim they are more worried about water contamination.
Hundreds of people showed up at a public hearing last week to debate the issue, many protesting the planned burial site being built in “little old Dudley.”
“You want a Muslim cemetery? Fine. Put it in your backyard. Not mine,” one resident Daniel Joseph Grazulis said, in a statement which perhaps hints at his slight anti-Muslim sentiment.
Others did not appear to take direct issue with the fact that those being buried were Muslim, but that they just did not want a cemetery at all.
“I really don’t want to see any cemetery here,” another resident said. “It’s quiet and I’d like to keep it that way.”
The president of the local Islamic society, Khalid Khan Sadozai, said that there is a great need for a Muslim burial place in the area. The Islamic society has already purchased the land where they plan to build the cemetery.
“[A] Muslim funeral is not in any way different from the traditional Jewish or traditional Christian burial,” he said.
Some of the opposition was based on claims that the Islamic burial practice would somehow contaminate the area’s water.
“I’m not against a cemetery,” another resident said. “I’m against one that could possibly contaminate my well water.”
Things unfortunately got heated at the meeting, with one resident complaining that he may have to listen to “crazy music” like the call to prayer, and another suggesting that the journey for a US soldier killed in Afghanistan is longer than the journey a Muslim would have to make to bury a loved one elsewhere.
