Does anyone know? I’m in Trinidad and muslim funerals here the body after viewing is put on a pyre and burned.
In most jurisdictions in the US, cremations are required to take place in a licensed crematorium. Pyres are generally disallowed due to sanitation and fire concerns.
Trinidad is ~26% Hindu; are you sure you’re not seeing a Hindu funeral?
Do you mean Hindu?
Muslims don’t cremate their dead. It’s not unlike the old Christian practice of not burning bodies, either.
Cremation is absolutly prohibited in Islam.
And a giant YUP^ I was seeing hindu funerals, NOT muslim funerals as they were identified to me:smack:
It looks like this
I lived in an area which has the highest Indian population in America. There are funeral homes which specialize in the funeral practices of the Hindu religion. No they are not allowed to have open pyres but they have adapted the customs to the new country. These funeral homes also make arrangements for transport back to India if that’s what the family wants.
http://www.hindufuneralsofamerica.com/fh/home/home.cfm?fh_id=13171
Zoroastrian funerals are similarly not practiced in most areas.
Not picking on the OP, but this does illustrate handily just how much ignorance about Islam is circulating out there. Keep that in mind the next time you hear some ignoramus bloviating that Islam is such-and-such, and consider that most people in the Western Hemisphere have no better knowledge about Islam than this OP.
Yea I’ll admit I didn’t know cremation was absolutely haram, and I only thought they were muslim funerals because I had been told “those are muslim funerals”.
I’m curious why pyres in the open is forbidden in the USA, obviously this is happening in a isolated and approved area(no one is doing it in their backyard.) And I’ve never noticed a stink or stench, people obviously light bonfires and such.
If you read up the Hindu funeral practices, particularly the pyres on the Ganges you will understand why. Modern crematoriums are designed so that there is noting left except a small amount of bone and ash. A pyre is not that effective. It is common to let all the body parts that are left over float away in the river. The wood fires just don’t get hot enough. We don’t allow them in the US because culturally we don’t like have half burnt human bodies around. And from a public health stand point we don’t like having half burnt human bodies around.
There is a large “Tower of Silence” in Karachi near one of the main markets. Sometimes you see birds circling it. Gave me the creeps.
When my mother died, the VERY Jewish funeral director made arrangements for us to have the sacrificial fire in a steel container in the funeral home. He shut off all of the smoke detectors and watched us with just a little bit of worry. After the ceremony she was cremated in their giant kiln.
Not exactly what we would have preferred, but it was the arrangements she made before she died. As Loach says, we make do, and funeral homes are beginning to make accomodations.
Interesting, but clearly not about VERY Jewish one, of course unless we have different scales of observance. A strict Orthodox Jew would not run a service with a crematorium, which is a forbidden funeral practice.
ETA: this raises the question of Jews performing work for Gentiles, about which I have no legal (halachic/Jewish law) knowledge. Jewish pork store owner and all that.
But obviously doesn’t seem likely.
That doesn’t seem like a real problem. If licensed funeral directors and the like were the ones managing the ritual, I’m sure they could manage disposal of any left-over remains in a way that doesn’t break health codes (putting them in a crematorium furnace being the obvious option).
I read an expose of the Tower of Silence in Bombay and it’s an absolute nightmare. Apparently, because of pollution and other reasons, there aren’t enough birds around to pick the bodies clean, so they are just stashed here and there inside the building.
Grew up as a Hindu in India. A properly made pyre gets hot enough so not much is left. You are right though - poor people do skimp on the wood
Not true .. see this
Who is we in your sentence ? Different native Americans had different cultures - some left them in the snow to be eaten by animals, California tribes practiced cremation, some left their body on stakes – cite. Vikings and Romans also used funeral pyres -cite
No culture likes to have half burnt human bodies around and no culture likes having rotting human bodies either - but that’s what a burial does.
Isn’t only the eating of pork forbidden? If so, why shouldn’t an observant Jews slaughter pigs? Why would it be forbidden to help others (in this case a gentile) not observe Jewish law?
Sorry, I more or less meant it as an amusing joke. He had a Jewish name, he wore a yarmulke the first time we saw him, etc. I just thought it was amusing that he was having a Hindu rite in the home. He was very nice and while I realize he was performing a paid-for service, I will still always be grateful for his assistance.
Like allowing a familiy member (ideally the decedent’s eldest son for Hindus) to press the button that actually lights the fire/moves the body into the retort.
I’ve always wondered something about India, do any local authorities make use of “industrial” crematoriums to cremate dead bodies en masse? I know alot of indigent corpses just get thrown into rivers.