Incorporating Graves Adjoining the Mosque into the Mosque

Question

Outside the wall of the mosque there are brick-built graves, and the Muslims want to extend the mosque forward. May the bricks of the graves be taken out, the graves levelled and the mosque extended forward, or not?

Answer

If that land is privately owned, then with the owner’s permission it is proper to level the graves in that place and incorporate it into the mosque, and it is also permissible, with the owner’s permission, to use the bricks of those graves in the mosque — provided the graves are so old that the deceased are no longer present in them but have turned into earth.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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