He says: I inherited a house from my late mother. This house had collapsed, so I renovated it. There are many graves next to it, and while we were digging its foundation...
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : He says: I inherited a house from my late mother. This house had collapsed, so I renovated it. There are many graves next to it, and while we were digging its foundation, we found decayed bones that appear to be from the neighboring graves. I took these bones and buried them in another place far from the house, and I completed its renovation. Please note that all our houses are located next to graves, and we inherited these houses from our ancestors. We do not own any other houses, nor do we have land to build on away from these cemeteries. Do we have the right to live in this house? And is it permissible for me to move these bones to a new place without sin being upon me, or not? Please inform us. May Allah reward you?
The Shaykh : If these are the graves of Muslims, then their owners have more right to the land than you, because when they were buried there, they owned it. It is not permissible for you to build your houses on the graves of Muslims. If you are certain that there are graves in this place, it is obligatory for you to remove the building and leave the graves without any building on them. The fact that you have no houses does not mean that you should occupy the houses of other Muslims, for graves are the homes of the dead, and it is not permissible for you to live in them as long as you know that there are dead people in them. We must also point out your phrase: "my late mother." Some people object to this term, saying that we do not know whether this deceased person is among those who have been shown mercy or not. This objection is valid if a person is reporting as a fact that this deceased person has been shown mercy, because it is not permissible for us to report that a deceased person has been shown mercy or punished without knowledge. Allah the Exalted said:[Al-Isra 17:36] But people do not intend to report this as a certainty. The person who says "the late father" or "the late mother" or "the late sister" or "the late brother" or similar phrases does not intend to assert or report that they are among those who have been shown mercy, but rather they intend to supplicate that Allah the Exalted has shown them mercy and express hope. There is a difference between supplication and reporting. Therefore, we say: "So-and-so, may Allah have mercy on him," or "So-and-so, may Allah forgive him." There is no difference in the Arabic language between saying "So-and-so, the late one" and "So-and-so, may Allah have mercy on him," because the phrase "may Allah have mercy on him" is a declarative sentence, and "al-marhum" (the late one) means the one who has been shown mercy, so it is also declarative. There is no difference between their meanings in the Arabic language. Therefore, whoever forbids saying "al-marhum" must also forbid saying "So-and-so, may Allah have mercy on him."
In any case, we say: There is no objection to this phrase, that is, saying "So-and-so, the late one" or "So-and-so, the one whom Allah has forgiven" or similar phrases, because we are not reporting this as a fact, saying that Allah has shown him mercy or that Allah has forgiven him. Rather, we are asking Allah and hoping, so it falls under the category of hope and supplication, not reporting. There is a difference between this and that.
The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.
The questioner : This is a letter from the questioner, a woman from Iraq, Nineveh Governorate.
The Shaykh : If these are the graves of Muslims, then their owners have more right to the land than you, because when they were buried there, they owned it. It is not permissible for you to build your houses on the graves of Muslims. If you are certain that there are graves in this place, it is obligatory for you to remove the building and leave the graves without any building on them. The fact that you have no houses does not mean that you should occupy the houses of other Muslims, for graves are the homes of the dead, and it is not permissible for you to live in them as long as you know that there are dead people in them. We must also point out your phrase: "my late mother." Some people object to this term, saying that we do not know whether this deceased person is among those who have been shown mercy or not. This objection is valid if a person is reporting as a fact that this deceased person has been shown mercy, because it is not permissible for us to report that a deceased person has been shown mercy or punished without knowledge. Allah the Exalted said:
And do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge
وَلا تَقْفُ مَا لَيْسَ لَكَ بِهِ عِلْمٌIn any case, we say: There is no objection to this phrase, that is, saying "So-and-so, the late one" or "So-and-so, the one whom Allah has forgiven" or similar phrases, because we are not reporting this as a fact, saying that Allah has shown him mercy or that Allah has forgiven him. Rather, we are asking Allah and hoping, so it falls under the category of hope and supplication, not reporting. There is a difference between this and that.
The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.
The questioner : This is a letter from the questioner, a woman from Iraq, Nineveh Governorate.