Ruling on digging up graves, desecrating them, and turning them into gardens

The third message in this session came from the questioner Ahlam Zuman Ibrahim from Anbar, Iraq. She says in her message: We live in a house next to a cemetery. This cemetery has been overgrown and forgotten for a long time, approximately thirty years. Gardens and orchards have been established over these graves, the trees have borne fruit, and we have eaten from their fruit. Is it permissible for us to eat this, or not?
Answer: It is not permissible to turn cemeteries into gardens or orchards. Rather, they must be respected. If they are for Muslims, they must be respected, fenced in, and protected from desecration. This is the obligation upon Muslims: to protect their cemeteries and not to desecrate them by walking on them, driving cars on them, sitting on them, throwing garbage on them, turning them into gardens, or doing anything similar. However, if someone who does not care about the command of Allah plows them, removes the traces of the graves, and turns them into orchards, he has committed a sin, and this action is forbidden for him, and he has done wrong. But the fruit of the palm trees and other trees that grow there is lawful for whoever eats it; because the fruit is not a desecration of the cemetery. The fruit on the trees comes from water, earth, and air, and it has no connection to the dead.
So, the conclusion is that desecrating them and using them as gardens is not permissible. The obligation is to protect them, fence them in, and safeguard them from anything that harms the dead. A Muslim is respected in life and in death. It is not permissible to desecrate his grave by stepping on it, sitting on it, urinating on it, or throwing garbage on it. But when someone who does not care removes the traces of the graves and commits this sin, and there are fruit-bearing trees found in these places, we do not know of any harm in eating the fruit. However, these people must be advised, and it must be made clear to them that they have erred in what they did and have done wrong. The obligation is for the place to remain a cemetery, to remove any harm from it, to protect it, and to fence it in so that it is not desecrated. The trees in it should be removed if the graves are still in their state and have not been dug up. Yes.
And if it is an abandoned cemetery, or an old cemetery, the obligation is that it remains for burials. If there are remains in it where people are buried, or if it has been dug up and the traces of the graves removed, the obligation is that it remains a cemetery so that people can be buried in it anew. This is because those who abandoned it in the past and made it a cemetery intended to benefit Muslims with it. So no one has the right to remove the graves from it and benefit from it for his own needs. Except if the authorities, through a Sharia-based review, see that removing it or using its land is appropriate when the graves are gone and the remains in the graves are gone and nothing of the remains remains. If the rulers of the Sharia and the scholars of the Sharia issue a ruling to the authorities to move the cemetery to another place at that time, they look for another cemetery for Muslims in place of this one, if the public interest for Muslims requires it. This is because it has fallen among residential areas and has become cramped for people, making burial in it difficult, or for other reasons that the scholars of the Sharia and the rulers of the Shari'ah see. That is up to the rulers of the Shari'ah to issue a ruling on the permissibility of using this land and digging up the graves in it and moving them to other cemeteries far from desecration and harm. This is up to the scholars of the Sharia. As for people desecrating it without a Sharia ruling and without digging up the graves in a Sharia-compliant manner, that is not permissible and is an evil. Yes.
The presenter: May Allah bless you and reward you with good.