A still from the documentary ‘Oddamavadi’, where a mourner dressed in a grey shirt and black pants walks through an overgrown burial lot dotted with tombstones.

A still from the documentary ‘Oddamavadi’, where a mourner walks through a burial lot in eastern Sri Lanka. For Sri Lankan Muslims, the terror of forced cremation under a cruel state policy defined the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic.Courtesy Aman Ashraff

Sri Lankan Muslims’ lasting pain over Covid-era forced cremations

The ‘Oddamavadi’ project, comprising a book and documentary film, takes on a shameful chapter in Sri Lanka’s recent history when Muslims were barred from burial in violation of their religious beliefs

Adilah Ismail is a writer and communications specialist based in Colombo. Her writing has appeared in The Hindu, Vogue India, Conde Nast Traveler India, Scroll, Architectural Digest India, The Sunday Times Sri Lanka, and other publications.

Published on:

26 Oct 2024, 5:41 am

IN ISLAM – the faith that indents my life – there is a pragmatic acceptance of the inevitability of death. Muslims believe our life on earth is transient, and that death only marks a temporal separation between soul and body until the hereafter. This is reiterated in scripture, hadith – accounts of the life of the Prophet Muhammad – and many other aspects of Islam. For instance, the prophet reminded Muslims to “be in the world as if you are a stranger or a traveller.”

Preoccupations with living and dying were heightened during the Covid-19 pandemic, when we were repeatedly confronted with our mortality. It was especially sharpened when the government of Sri Lanka, then led by Gotabaya Rajapaksa, ordered in early 2020 that all those who died due to the coronavirus were to be cremated, contravening the funerary rites centred on burial that are customary among Muslims and many Christian communities too.

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Sri Lanka

COVID-19

human rights

Islam

Muslims