Catalonia’s Muslims Seek Dedicated Burial Spaces Amid Cemetery Shortage

Amina (pseudonym) goes to the El Masnou cemetery in Catalonia, where she has lived since 2005, almost every Friday. That is where her brother Mohamed (pseudonym), who died in 2020 during the health crisis when the borders were closed, making it impossible to repatriate his body to Morocco, is buried. Mohamed was not buried according to Muslim rites, let alone in a Muslim cemetery, which the city does not have, Amina confides "with grief and shame" to Mundo Islam.

After the easing of health measures, Mohamed’s family considered exhuming the body, a practice prohibited by religion, and taking it to Barcelona to bury it in a Muslim cemetery. "But it costs a lot of money," admits Amina, who cannot ask other family members in Morocco for help because she has hidden the conditions in which her brother was buried.

Like Amina, many Muslims are experiencing the same situation in Spain. According to data from the Union of Islamic Communities of Spain (UCIDE), only 35 of the more than 8,000 Spanish municipalities had Muslim cemeteries in 2020. Muslim communities have constantly demanded cemeteries to bury their dead with dignity, like Catholics. Even though "traditionally, there has always been a tendency to repatriate the deceased to the country of origin, there has never been a problem of space," explains Mohamed Halhoul, spokesperson for the Islamic Council of Catalonia (CIC).

Everything changed during the health crisis. The CIC had to deal with hundreds of cases of families who did not know what to do or where to bury their loved ones, he says, noting that 5 of the 16 Muslim cemeteries in Catalonia were inaugurated after 2020. For the Barcelona City Commissioner, Khalid Ghali, the Muslim religion requires that the body be buried in the place closest to the place of death. So, "if the body of a Muslim has to be repatriated, it is no longer buried according to his beliefs," he specifies. The transfer of a body to a city with Muslim squares has a high cost that families cannot afford, Halhoul nuances.