Muslim workers building a Christian cemetery

A question about Muslim labourers working on the building of a Christian cemetery, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that it is permissible, being kindness and the good dealing that is the rule towards non-Muslims, and cited the Qur'an, the Sunna, the reports of the early Muslims and the jurists of the schools on shrouding and burying a non-Muslim and digging his grave for a fee. ¹

The questioner asked: may Muslim workers take part in building a Christian cemetery in which Christian dead will be buried? ¹

The Department answered that Muslim workers may build and prepare the cemeteries of non-Muslims, including the Christians living in their country and others, since this is kindness and good dealing; the rule in dealing with non-Muslims is that it rests on justice, kindness and the avoidance of ill-treatment, by the text of al-Mumtahana 8, and it is one of the rights of protected non-Muslims over the Muslims and a sign of God's honouring of the human being in al-Isra 70. ¹ It said the Sunna, the reports of the early Muslims and the jurists' statements allow a Muslim to lend a hand, whether for pay or as a kindness and voluntarily, to non-Muslims in what upholds human dignity, including burying them after death: the Prophet ordered Ali ibn Abi Talib to bury his uncle Abu Talib, who died outside Islam, as in al-Nasa'i's Sunan, and it is reported from Sa'id ibn Jubayr that a Christian man died leaving a Muslim son who did not follow his bier, and Ibn Abbas said he should have followed it, buried him and sought forgiveness for him during his life, as Ibn Abi Shayba records in his Musannaf. ¹ It quoted al-Juwayni in Nihayat al-Matlab (3/17) that shrouding and burying a non-Muslim who has no guardian of his own faith is a collective duty on the Muslims; al-Shirbini in Mughni al-Muhtaj (2/32) that the sounder view is that shrouding and burying a protected non-Muslim is obligatory from the treasury, and failing that on the Muslims, when he has no property and no one bound to maintain him; and the authoritative Hanbali works, following what is reported from Ahmad, that a Muslim may dig a grave for protected non-Muslims, as al-Buhuti says in Kashshaf al-Qina' (3/560) that there is no harm in digging a grave for a protected non-Muslim for a fee. ¹ It concluded that there is no blame on a Muslim who works on non-Muslim cemeteries, since nothing in sharia opposes it; rather the rule in dealing with non-Muslims is justice and kindness towards them. ¹

Jordan's General Iftaa Department published this fatwa on aliftaa.jo as no. 4513, dated 6 September 2026, in the category of the rules of burial and cemeteries, as a research fatwa issued by the Iftaa Committee. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.