Should one be buried or cremated? This is the only factor that has Japanese Muslims in a dilemma, as the network struggles with a lack of burial plots. The scenario has worsened in recent times, with some in the Asian country taking to social media and making hostile comments to save Muslims from obtaining plots of land to bury their dead in accordance with their faith.

But what is this developing call for for burial sites in Japan? And how does the Asian country respond to those requests?

We get you the full story.

In 2020, the Beppu Muslim Association sought approval from the city of Hiji, on the southern island of Kyushu, to identify a cemetery where Muslims can settle.

Similar applications have also been made throughout the country. For example, a resident of Miyagi’s Prefecture had appealed to Governor Yoshihiro Murai for a funeral plot, claiming that living in Japan “is very difficult” for his circle of relatives due to the lack of tombs.

The call for burial plots comes as Japan sees a wave of Muslims in the country. The number of Muslims living in the Asian country has been highest in recent years, from 110,000 Muslims in 2010 to 350,000 Muslims in 2023.

It is said that the maximum of the country’s Muslims came here for educational opportunities or to locate the work. And those who are hired in Japan rarely need to go home. This construction in the number of Muslims has already led to a construction in the number of mosques: the position of devout worship. It has grown from 4 in 1980 to the whopping 149 in June 2024.

To date, Japan only has 10 main places with burial sites in Japan with affiliations.

However, the request for such burial grounds from Muslims is facing stiff opposition from some local Japanese. In the case of the burial plot in the Miyagi prefecture, there have been over 400 complaints against the proposed cemetery, with many claiming that it could be a “potential health hazard,” such as contamination of local water supplies.

Some on social media, objecting to the cemetery even wrote, “If you can’t follow Japanese customs and ways, then don’t come to Japan.” One other user wrote on social media, “Burial cemeteries are one of the methods used by Muslims to invade foreign countries.”

In the case of the proposed cemetery in Hiji, Mayor Abe Tetsuya has long been opposed to it. Shortly after winning the mayoral election last September, he said, “This is not just an issue for the town. We need to get the national government to provide guidelines. It’s a matter of ordinances and a constitutional problem.”

Incidentally, Japanese law does not prohibit interment. However, there are ordinances banning burials in some areas on public hygiene grounds.

Muhammad Tahir Abbas Khan, head of the Beppu Muslim Association, lamented the situation, attributing it to deceptive reports on social networks. “They are said innumerable false statements and it is difficult to put them at this time,” he said to the south of the south. China’s morning post.

Speaking on the same, he said that he has filed a lawsuit opposed to a YouTuber who made incorrect and deceptive attacks. “I can not I have to do this step,” said Khan, who has lived in Japan since 2001 and have become a Japanese national more than a decade ago.

According to Khan, the YouTuber says that he is looking in Japan in a majority Muslim country and that his efforts to make sure that a cemetery was only the first level of this campaign.

“At first, I get an idea that I respond because it would only make things worse, but now I see that many other people take his words and the percentage,” Khan said in the South China Morning Post.

He added that there were also several statements that taxpayers are used for cemetery. Khan said he was misleading and that the proposed cemetery prices would increase through the Beppu Muslim Agreement.

“His objections are all garbage,” Khan told South China Morning Post to South China Post. “I heard thousands of negative comments, and I still place it in the complicated perceive how many other people are misleading through what they said in the media and social networks. “

To combat opposite to this misinformation, the association, under Khan, also began several awareness initiatives. But Khan says that the mayor’s opposition remains an obstacle.

Speaking to Kyodo News, he added that he would continue his search for a cemetery. “We cannot leave the tombs for the next generation. “

And Khan and the Muslims are not alone; They discovered that of Miyagi Gov Yoshihiro Murai, who stated last December, that the cemetery “had to be carried out despite criticism. “

“I think the government is more involved in the lack of attention to multiculturalism, even though it claims to be a multicultural society,” Murai told Kyodo News. “Even if I’m criticized, we have to do something about it,” he added.

He further stated, “It’s important we meet the needs of such people.”

The Muslims’ call for burial is in variance to Japan’s tradition of cremation. Traditionally, in Japan, most people are cremated; one report even claims that Japan has the world’s highest rate of cremation. A 2012 report by the Cremation Society of Great Britain recorded Japan’s cremation rate, the highest in the world, as 99.9 per cent. Taiwan has the second highest rate with 90.8 per cent, followed by Hong Kong (89.9 per cent), Switzerland (84.6 per cent), Thailand (80 per cent), and Singapore (79.7 per cent).

It is said that when Buddhism spread through Japan, so did the practice of cremation. But in 1873, Japan banned cremation, claiming that burning bodies were disrespectful to the dead and compromised on public morality and that the resulting smoke is a problem of public fitness.

In May 1875, less than two years after approval, the ban was reversed. Two decades later, in 1897, the Japanese government ruled that anyone who died of a communicable disease was incinerated.

And today, cremation is the choice for most.

With inputs from agencies