State of burial grounds

Those who care to make distinctions between the resting places carved out for the dead classify them in to three types. Graveyards, according to authorities, were normally found in worshipping premises. Experts explain further that while burial grounds are communally-operated and usually found in rural areas, cemeteries are government-operated and mostly found in the cities. […]

Those who care to make distinctions between the resting places carved out for the dead classify them in to three types. Graveyards, according to authorities, were normally found in worshipping premises. Experts explain further that while burial grounds are communally-operated and usually found in rural areas, cemeteries are government-operated and mostly found in the cities. Whatever maybe their natures as suggested by these definitions, burial grounds deserve the attention of the living that has a moral duty to ensure not only cleanliness but also serenity and calmness wherever there are graves. While burial ground is a transit camp in the course of man’s transition from the planetary world to the world of Truth, the grave is the place where man takes a ‘connecting flight’ to paradise or hell.
The exhuming of corpses in a burial ground in Kano city sometime in August 2013 arising from flooding did not portray us as a people who cared much for the dead as they rest in their graves. A corpse exhumed by erosion or washed up by flood and in some cases consumed by scavenging animals cannot be said to be “resting in peace”; all due to our chosen path of negligence that has over the years become a national character. It is unfortunate that this is allowed to extend over to the relationship between us (the living) and the dead. Although erosion could sometimes ‘eat’ deep in to the ground, our refusal to properly dig graves down to the required depth may have accounted for the washing up of corpses during floods.
Rodent hunters are likely, in the next few weeks, to start setting bushes ablaze; an action that puts burial grounds at the risk of being razed. Communities are therefore encouraged to clear all the bushes within and around burial grounds in order to forestall a situation where part or the entire yard for the dead would be engulfed by fire. Apart from being rewarding, keeping burial grounds clean further advances the spirit of the prophetic tradition “love for your brother what you love for yourself”.
As people are exhorted, individually and collectively, to keep burial grounds neat and protected from fire and other unwanted encroachments, government at the local level is equally reminded of its constitutional responsibility to the dead. According to the fourth schedule of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the main functions of a local government include “establishment and maintenance of cemeteries, burial grounds and homes for the destitute or infirm”. From observable indications, many of the local government councils in Nigeria have failed in this aspect of their functions. Most local government chairmen whose desire is to become not just richer than they were before assuming office, but indeed wealthier than everyone in the local government area have forgotten about this constitutional provision. The very greedy among them would even wish burial grounds or burial were among other sources from which they could generate revenue by asking the dead to pay for funeral services not rendered.
A few of the local government authorities who consider themselves as mere mortals and their positions or public offices as a trust placed on them by Allah (SWT) in addition to being a trial of their faith have tried to live up to their responsibilities in respect of burial grounds. The Chairman of Bida Local government in Niger State, for instance, has employed workers as undertakers and caretakers for the burial grounds in Bida municipality. Besides, the local council has also fenced the burial grounds and provided functional boreholes in each. Security guards have equally been employed to keep 24/7 watch on shift-basis over the burial grounds; with a view to protecting the graves against the wicked attack of ‘spare-parts’ dealers who sneak in at night to exhume corpses or their limbs.
Similarly, big halogen lamps have been installed at all the burial grounds by the Bida local council. This is a good illustration of responsible leadership, worthy of emulation by other chairmen within and outside the state who are probably too busy to think about death or about the ‘transit Camp’ that has no VIP lounge. It is hoped that these services initiated by this local council would not be allowed to die along with the administration that pioneered the worthwhile initiative.
As a mark of respect for the dead, it is not lawful to sit, lean or walk on graves. Amru bn Hazm relates that the Prophet (SAW) saw him leaning on a grave and he said: “Don’t harm the companion (resident) of this grave”. Abu Hurayrah (RA) also relates that the Prophet (SAW) said: “It is better for any of you to sit on a live coal, bun his cloth and then get harmed than to sit on a grave”. To build or site a beer parlour close to a burial ground would be one notorious way of disrespecting and disturbing the peace of the dead. May Allah (SWT) guide us to give the dead the honour and respect they deserve as they lay in their graves, amin.