Sale of land containing graves

Question

Question: A person bought a plot of land, and the buyer knew well that there are many graves in this land. Now the said gentleman has had a pond dug in this land. While digging, bones of the heads and hands of the dead and corpses were found; all the bones were buried in the ground in another place. Is it now permissible to make a pond on land containing graves or not?

Answer

When someone has bought the land from its owner, the owner now has the choice to make a pond in that land or do some other work. However, breaking those bones is not permissible; rather, they should be carefully buried in one place. The jurists have stated this explicitly. If the graveyard is a waqf, then its sale and making a pond and the like in it are impermissible.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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