No, 33 Muslim victims of the coronavirus will not be cremated in the UK

The idea of cremation is a sacrilege for Muslims, who like Jews believe that a body must be buried soon after a person has passed away.

Any hint of a violation of this religious tradition was always sure to send shockwaves through the community.

That’s why it’s understandable that a recent video spread on WhatsApp caught the attention of many British Muslims.

In the video a man who works for the Islamic charity Crisis Aid claimed, incorrectly, that due to the lack of sanitary body bags, 33 bodies of Muslims who had succumbed to the coronavirus would be cremated instead of buried.

The video went viral and prompted an immediate rebuke by Crisis Aid itself.

In a circular, the charity wrote: “We wish to reassure the public that there are no mortuaries in London with 33 Muslim bodies about to be cremated.”

The charity explained that the author of the video had not properly verified the claim and further implored Muslims not to share the video on WhatsApp, given the distressing nature of the unfounded allegations.

In a separate video message, the British National Burial Council (NBC) Shaykh Yunus Dudhwala, further refuted the video and warned British Muslims that it was Islamically wrong to share unverified claims.

“We need to be careful as Muslims. The advice that the Prophet Muhammad - Peace be upon him- gave us is verify before you amplify,” Dudhwala said.

He further went on to address the claims that bodies were to be cremated directly:

“Recently in the past hour...there’s a message going around that there are 30 plus bodies, which are piled up in a London hospital, and they might be cremated because there are no body bags.

“I work as a senior chaplain in this country and I’m based in London, and I’m not aware of any London hospital, which has 30 plus bodies in their mortuary, that’s number one. 

“Number two, body bags are not required for a Covid-19 patient who has died.”

Dudhwala clarified in emphatic terms that no hospital in Britain would ever cremate a Muslim in any circumstance.

To be sure, there were briefly held anxieties among Jews and Muslims in March after the government passed a series of measures instructing local authorities on how to handle the Covid-19 outbreak.

One of the articles, quickly picked up on by religious groups, was a clause allowing councils to cremate victims of the pandemic to prevent backlogs in morgues.

This sparked concern among religious groups that members of their congregations would be cremated in violation of their traditions.

These worries were quickly put to rest by the British government, which amended the law to exempt religious groups, such as Jews and Muslims.

As the coronavirus spreads globally, so does the phenomenon of fake news and rumour on WhatsApp and social media platforms.

With distrust in media rising globally, social media provides a fertile breeding ground for the dissemination of fake news.

The unprecedented nature of the pandemic, including home quarantines and the shut down of social life, may contribute to a feeling of panic and anxiety that allows fake news to spread.

Recent conspiracy theories that have taken hold thanks to fake news or misinformation include the suggestion that the virus was manufactured by governments and that the pandemic is linked to the construction of 5G broadcast towers.