Couple Angered by Treatment of Muslim Friend’s Remains

Islam Times: "She applied to the Canadian Consulate for a visitor's visa in order to come to Canada to see her husband for the last time," said the woman's lawyer, Victor Libitka.

Meanwhile, the body of Amir Mohammadi has been denied religious burial rites and desecrated, say Muslim friends in Winnipeg. They were shocked to learn the Kurdish Canadian was killed in a highway accident east of Kenora last month. They were shocked again when they set about planning his burial and discovered his body was claimed by a woman he wed in Vietnam last year.

They couldn't give him religious burial rites — promptly cleaning and wrapping the corpse in a shroud then burying it facing Mecca. His remains were kept in a funeral home for 33 days then embalmed as his wife applied to get into Canada.

Embalming — cutting the body and filling it with toxic fluid — is haraam, or forbidden, in the Muslim faith, said Glenda Lagadi. Her husband is Kurdish and they befriended Mohammadi when he arrived in Winnipeg 21 years ago.

"He's impure — that's the thing we hate the most," she said. "It's disrespecting the whole Muslim community," she said.
Having the spouse make decisions about his remains is respecting the law, however, says the director of the Vital Statistics Agency in Manitoba.

The Anatomy Act says a body can be claimed by a list of preferred claimants — and a spouse tops the list, said Susan Boulter, director of the Vital Statistics Agency and chairwoman of the Funeral Board of Manitoba.

© Islam Times