We see many advertisements selling burial places, and that too at exorbitant prices. It is a pity that one has to pay such huge sums for just the last 6 feet or less one occupies for a few months before the body totally decomposes and disappears. After that the space is just kept in the name of the deceased preventing others from being buried.

According to Islamic principles, no one can sell or buy land for burial. Once a person is buried, after 5 years that place is dug again to bury another. We know that our whole body perishes except our coccyx bone. Knowing this, why jealously allocate this place for bodies that are no more there? Isn't it amazing what man does knowing that what he is doing is futile? Imagine if everyone in this world follows this practice, there would not be enough space for the living to live!

The living must learn to let go of the dead. True, we will have sadness and yearning for the dead person, but pretending they are there under the earth does not serve any purpose. The best way to show love for the dead is, not to pretend they are there under the soil or lay flowers at the grave, which will just fade in days, but to continue to uphold the good they lived for, to honour their loved ones and their friends, ask Allah to forgive them and to pray that one day we will be united with them in heaven in the next world - as Islam quite rightly prescribes.