Will Bin Laden's sea burial backfire? Radical Muslims already name location 'Martyr's Sea'

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Updated: 03:20 EST, 5 May 2011

Radical Muslims are already calling the site of Osama bin Laden’s ocean burial the ‘Martyr’s Sea’, according to one of Britain’s leading Islamic scholars.

The US said the decision to drop bin Laden’s body into the North Arabian Sea was taken to avoid creating a shrine for the slain Al Qaeda chief.

But Abdal Hakim Murad, Muslim Chaplain at Cambridge University, claimed yesterday that the move could backfire on the Americans.

Buried at sea: Bin Laden was disposed of overboard the USS Carl Vinson in the North Arabian sea following DNA tests

Speaking on Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme, he said it was ‘disappointing’ that bin Laden wasn’t taken into custody.

‘By tipping him into the sea, the Americans may have created a kind of shrine. Some radicals are already calling the Arabian Sea the Martyr’s Sea,’ he said.

‘Given Muslim ideas of holiness diffusing over large areas it is possible that a pilgrimage will develop as radicals stand on beaches contemplating the virtues of their dead hero,’ he added.

He said that one of America’s greatest achievements of the last century was President Truman’s insistence that Nazi war criminals should be tried at Nuremberg.

Backfiring: Abdal Hakim Murad said that dropping Bin Laden in the sea the American's may actually have created a shrine

Condemnation: A group of supporters gather following Bin Laden's death. A leading Islamic scholar has warned that his burial could lead to his supporters gathering on beaches contemplating the virtues of their dead hero

But after bin Laden’s death in the US commando raid in Abbottabad, he suggested that full justice had been denied.

‘Conspiracy theories in the Muslim world and beyond may now gain momentum. For too many, the dark lord is still among us or was innocent all along and that belief cannot bring the closure that America and the world rightly crave.

‘Muslim scholars have been worried about the manner in which his mortal remains were consigned to the deep, he added, saying that Islam’s most respected scholars had already decreed the sea burial ‘religiously improper.’  

‘Even mass murderers deserve a religiously valid burial. We are judged on how we behave when in a position of strength,’ he said.