“Finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist would have been difficult,” an unnamed US official told the Associated Press. “So the US decided to bury him at sea.”
White House officials insisted that appealing to countries to accept bin Laden’s body for burial would have violated the swift burial Islamic law prescribes. One unnamed country that the US asked to take his body – widely believed to be Saudi Arabia – refused.
Denying bin Laden a ground burial also prevents his grave from becoming a shrine that would motivate more jihadis – or a site that would invite abuse and retribution from his enemies.
Many US Muslims and US-based scholars, including New York University chaplain Khalid Latif, support the administration’s decision.
“The decision to bury bin Laden at sea exemplifies for us how sharia is meant to function as it takes into consideration what would be best for society on a whole through a lens of compassion and mercy,” Imam Latif wrote in a CNN column. “Who would want this man buried next to their loved one?” he asked, adding that ground burials would give enemies or admirers opportunities for abuse or glorification.
“No opportunity should exist by which they could glorify bin Laden in his death, either in the immediate future or in years to come,” he wrote.
