The mystery surrounding the burial of the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev has come to an end. The Boston Marathon bombing suspect was buried this week at a small Muslim cemetery in Doswell, Va.

According to his completed death certificate, which was released on Friday, Mr. Tsarnaev was buried on Thursday at Al-Barzakh Cemetery, about half an hour north of Richmond.

His body was claimed by an uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, about two weeks later, but it remained at a funeral home in Worcester, Mass., for six days, because no cemetery or host community could be found that would accept it.

Martha Mullen followed the story from her home in Richmond, Va., and asked local religious leaders if they could think of anywhere Mr. Tsarnaev could be laid to rest.

“Jesus tells us, ‘Love your enemies,’ not to hate them after they’re dead,” said Ms. Mullen, according to a statement provided by the Islamic Society of Greater Richmond.

She received an offer from the Islamic Funeral Services of Virginia, a small organization that runs a cemetery with several dozen plots in Doswell, an unincorporated village with less than 2,000 people.

“We strongly disagree with his violent actions, but that does not release us from our obligation to return his body to the earth,” said an unnamed official with the group who was quoted in the statement.   »»» Tamerlan Tsarnaev Buried in Virginia Cemetery – NYTimes.com

The burial of Tamerlan Tsarnaev was not only carried out in a legal way but was also the right thing to do. His burial was legal, in compliance with more than 2,000 years of precedent and required by Christian doctrine.

It is a sad commentary on the meanness of thousands who have said some very nasty and vulgar things about the burial of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in U.S. soil.

Since many people accept the idea that there is an actual “war on terror” and that Tamerlan was a enemy combatant in that war, let us look at the principles and ethics that apply when an enemy combatant is killed in battle. There are three ways to examine the question: (1) from the strictly legal standpoint, (2) the historical perspective and for most Americans (3) the Christian perspective.

1. From a strictly legal standpoint

Since Tamerlan was in the U.S. as a legal alien when he died, he can be buried anywhere in the country so long as local laws regulating the burial of human remains are respected. In this case, it appears that a such formalities were followed. Furthermore, in times of battle, it is common for fallen enemies to be buried in the place where they fell. In fact, until recent times, repatriation of the dead was unusual.

2. From a historical perspective

Since before the time of Aristotle (d. 322 B.C.), Western civilization has required that the remains of fallen enemies be treated with respect and accorded a decent burial. Aristotle’s philosophical writings on ethics and and what it means to be a “virtuous human” are still read today with great respect.

How the bodies of fallen enemies are to be treated is discussed at length in the foundational work on international law De Jure Belli ac Pacis (On the Law of War and Peace), published by Hugo Grotius in 1625. The principles that he described are still in effect today.

“…the rights of burial, the discharge of which forms one of the offices of humanity, cannot be denied even to enemies, whom a state of warfare has not deprived of the rights and nature of men. For, as Virgil observes, all animosity against the vanquished and the dead must cease, because they have suffered the last of evils that can be inflicted. Optatus Milevitanus [says] ‘If there have been struggles among the living, your hatred surely must be satisfied with the death of an adversary. For the tongue of strife is now silenced.’

” …it is agreed by all that public enemies are entitled to burial. Appian calls it the common right of war, with which, Tacitus says, no enemy will refuse to comply.

“For the hand of death (…) has destroyed all enmity towards the fallen, and protected their bodies from all insult.”

The Jewish Biblical scholar and philosopher Philo and the Jewish historian Josephus both argued that even an enemy killed in warfare is marked with the common seal of human nature, and must be accorded all the customs that are common to all mankind.

Since the eve of Western civilization, respect for the dead and their right to a decent burial of their bodies has been a continuous principal of the law of war.

If the deceased is considered to be an enemy fallen in war, refusing him a proper burial would have been a violation of the First Geneva Convention, to which the U.S. is a signatory.

“Parties to the conflict shall ensure that the dead are honorably interred, if possible according to the rites of the religion to which they belonged.” Geneva I, 1949, Art. 17.

3. From the Christian perspective

In addition to the Ten Commandments, the Jews in the time of Jesus observed over 600 other religious laws. One day, a man asked Jesus which was the greatest law. Jesus said:
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40, KJV)

In other words, we should do for our neighbor any good thing that we would desire for ourselves. For Jesus, “neighbour” means any person with whom we come into contact, that is, any person who is nigh unto us. With to respect enemies, Jesus’ teaching is very clear:

“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44, KJV)

We are told to be better than our enemies–to the point of treating them with Christian love.

As the ancients pointed out, once an enemy combattant is dead, there is no longer any reason to act with animosity since death should destroy all our enmity toward him. The human remains of Tamerlan are an empty shell. The soul, consciousness, mind and breath of life are all gone. What remains will now decompose in the ground and return to dust. By God’s will, he once received the breath of life and was molded from the dust of the earth to be a human being, just like our father Adam. That breath of life has departed, and we must allow what remains to return to its primordial form for it is God’s own command that we, being made from dust, must, after death, return to dust.

The people who organized the transfer of Tamerlan’s body to your city and who gave him a proper burial have done a good work, an act of mercy. That act of mercy must be shown to all the dead bodies–the good, the evil, the saints, the monsters and even you and I–who deserve to be treated with respect and returned to the earth.

Furthermore, when we say that someone like Tamerlan is not like us, we deceive ourselves. He is a warning to us that there is in everyone of us a spark of evil that can be fired up and do great harm. The Bible tells us that Moses, in a fit of rage, killed an Egyptian soldier and tried to hide his body. The Apostle Peter drew a knife in the Garden of Gethsemane and cut off the ear of a servant of the High Priest who had come to arrest Jesus. Before his conversion, the Apostle Paul helped persecute Christians. He stood by in silence and watched Saint Stephen being stoned to death.

We are reminded of the bond that unites all of us, good or evil, by the Rev. John Donne, the great English writer and Anglican priest, who, upon hearing the bell that tolled for a funeral wrote these words:
“All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.

“…this bell calls us all; …Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.” (Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, no. 17)

When the essence of our being has departed our mortal bodies, the flesh and bones that remain deserve a decent burial. Tamerlan’s evil was not in his body parts; it was in his soul, his mind, his consciousness, and they all left his body when he died. His mortal remains are no better and no worse than our own will be when we leave this world; they deserved and received a decent burial–the universal right of all mankind.

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Myanmar President Thein Sein, nearly one year after sectarian violence first exploded under his watch, vowed Monday his government would do everything it can to protect the rights of minority Muslims living in the predominantly Buddhist nation.

The promise came amid fears that the religious unrest, which has morphed into a campaign against the country’s Muslim community, could spread further after a new round of attacks last week saw several Muslim villages north of the main city Yangon burned to the ground.

Thein Sein’s administration, which came to power in 2011 after half a century of military rule, has been heavily criticized for not doing enough to protect Muslims or stop the violence from spreading since it began with clashes between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya in the west last year.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has accused authorities – including Buddhist monks, local politicians, government officials, and state security forces – of fomenting an organized campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against the Muslims; the government has denied the charges. So far, hundreds of people have died and more than 135,000 people – almost all of them Muslims – have fled their homes.   »»» UTSanDiego.com

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Egypt’s state news agency says a hard-line Islamist preacher has been arrested for slandering a famous actress by accusing her of “practicing prostitution.”

In December, Abdullah Badr was sentenced to a year in prison and fined for his remarks about Elham Chahine on el-Hafiz TV, which is associated with the ultraconservative Salafi movement.

The Middle East News Agency said his appeal was rejected earlier this week, and police arrested him Wednesday in the Delta Sharqia province after he failed to turn himself in.   »»» CBS 21 News (Pennsylvania, U.S.)

How curious! An extremist Salifi preacher who does not know the Qur’an’s teaching on making such accusations:

“Those who accuse innocent women [of fornication] without producing four witnesses are liable to eighty lashes as punishment. (Q. 24:4)”

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said that accusing another person of adultery or fornication without proof is an attack on that person’s reputation, which is one of three types of oppression. The others are stealing another’s property and shedding innocent blood.

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In a press statement, Dr. Abdul-Rahman Al-Barr, member of the Muslim Brotherhood Guidance Bureau and Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Mansoura, said: “Congratulating Christians, our partners in the homeland, on feasts and festivals is an act of virtue and goodness, so long as such congratulations do not include anything that contradicts the tenets or principles of Islam. We cannot participate in their [some of their] prayers, but we can use words of courtesy and congratulation.

Al-Barr added that: “Indeed, I do not see anything wrong with congratulating Copts on the birth of Jesus, for example, since we believe that Jesus (peace be upon him) is a Prophetic Messenger, and that his birth was a sign of God, good for mankind.

“Indeed, Prophet Mohamed (peace be upon him) said: “I am the closest person to Jesus, the son of Mary, in this world and in the hereafter, because all Prophets are brothers of one family, with different mothers, but their religion is one.” (Narrated by Al-Bukhari).

“For this reason, I am always in contact with my Christian friends, including some members of the clergy, particularly on special occasions of theirs. In fact, I paid many visits to churches, most recently to attend Pope Tawadros’ enthronement ceremony, where I congratulated him on that very important event. I never did anything contrary to my faith on any of those occasions.”

   »»» Ikhwanweb

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In a 12-minute video, John Green teaches you a very condensed history of Islam, including the revelation of the Qu’ran to Muhammad, the five pillars of Islam, how the Islamic empire got its start, the Rightly Guided Caliphs, and more.   »»» ISailan Muslim (Sri Lanka)

Islam, the Quran, and the Five Pillars All Without a Flamewar
Hosted by Sailan Muslim – The Online Resource for Sri Lanka Muslims

Of all the moral precepts instilled in Buddhist monks the promise not to kill comes first, and the principle of non-violence is arguably more central to Buddhism than any other major religion. So why have monks been using hate speech against Muslims and joining mobs that have left dozens dead?

This is happening in two countries separated by well over 1,000 miles of Indian Ocean – Burma and Sri Lanka. It is puzzling because neither country is facing an Islamist militant threat. Muslims in both places are a generally peaceable and small minority.

While no Muslims have been killed in Sri Lanka, the Burmese situation is far more serious. Here the antagonism is spearheaded by the 969 group, led by a monk, Ashin Wirathu, who was jailed in 2003 for inciting religious hatred. Released in 2012, he has referred to himself bizarrely as “the Burmese Bin Laden”.

March saw an outbreak of mob violence directed against Muslims in the town of Meiktila, in central Burma, which left at least 40 dead.

Tellingly, the violence began in a gold shop. The movements in both countries exploit a sense of economic grievance – a religious minority is used as the scapegoat for the frustrated aspirations of the majority.

On Tuesday, Buddhist mobs attacked mosques and burned more than 70 homes in Oakkan, north of Rangoon, after a Muslim girl on a bicycle collided with a monk. One person died and nine were injured.   »»» BBC News

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The tragedy orchestrated two weeks ago by the Boston Bombers adds yet another milestone to those who see Islam as a religion that promotes violence. Yet the two brothers who senselessly took several lives and forever altered the lives of many others appear to have almost no real knowledge of their religion. I am struck by the widespread use in the media of the term “devout” to describe the older brother Tamerlane.

I don’t remember anyone saying that Terry Jones, the lunatic preacher who says he has a divine mission to burn Qurans, is a “devout” Christian. The Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik is usually labeled a “right-wing extremist” yet his writings show a profound regard for [Christian imperialism].

The Boston Bombers and their kind seek to kill innocent people who have personally done them, nor Islam, no harm and are better defined as “devout terrorists,” devoted to carrying out terrorists acts, like Breivik in Norway.    »»» tabsir.net

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The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation urged on Saturday an “unconditional” release of two Christian bishops kidnapped this week in Syria.

OIC secretary general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu condemned the kidnapping on Monday of Aleppo’s Greek Orthodox Bishop Boulos Yaziji and Syriac Orthodox Bishop Yohanna Ibrahim by armed men as they were en route to the northern city from the Turkish border.

He called in a statement for their “immediate and unconditional release because such act contradicts the principles of true Islam, and the (high) status held for Christian clergymen in Islam.”   »»» THE DAILY STAR (Lebanon)

In the Qur’an, God says: [Among the non-Muslims,] “you will find that the nearest in love to the Believers are those who say ‘We are Christians.’ Because among them are men devoted to learning [priests and bishops] and men who have renounced the world [monks], and they are not arrogant.” (Q. 5-82

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Canada’s Muslim community, which alerted police to an alleged plot to attack a passenger train that led to two arrests this week, said imams were ready to report radical members who seemed ready to cross a line.

Police arrested Raed Jaser of Toronto and Chiheb Esseghaier of Montreal on Monday and said they had been investigating them since last fall after a tip from the Muslim community in Toronto. The men appeared in separate courts on Tuesday.

Muslims comprise around one million of Canada’s 34.5 million population.   »»» Reuters FaithWorld

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Terrorism or hirabah is forbidden in Islamic law, which groups it with brigandage, highway robbery and extortion rackets. It is any use of fear and coercion in public spaces for money or power. The principle of forbidding the spreading of terror in the land is based on the Qur’an, which makes such acts capital crimes.

The Qur’an orders believers to exercise justice toward people even where they have reason to be angry with them: “Do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just. Be just; that is nearer to righteousness.”

Prominent Muslim legal scholar Sherman Jackson writes, “The Spanish Maliki jurist Ibn `Abd al-Barr (d. 464/1070)) defines the agent of hirabah as ‘Anyone who disturbs free passage in the streets and renders them unsafe to travel, striving to spread corruption in the land by taking money, killing people or violating what God has made it unlawful to violate is guilty of hirabah….”

Armed jihad against an enemy must follow strict rules. There is no place for vigilante justice. Declaring and making war against an entire people is a serious matter that is not in hands of individuals or militant groups. Only a properly appointed public official can declare war.

Jihad is essentially defensive and protective. It does not allow pre-emptive attacks.

Even during a properly declared jihad, the innocent must not be direct targets. Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, the first Caliph (political successor to the Prophet Muhammad), instructed his armies that they must not kill non-combatants, women, children, old people, the sick and infirm. He further ordered that devastation of buildings and lands was to be limited and not general.   »»» QALAM