Selling Land Designated for Children’s Graves

Question

If in some settlement there is a separate graveyard for adults and a separate one for children, but rubbish is lying in the children’s graveyard and people want to build houses there — if the price of the site of this graveyard is taken from them, where should it be spent? There is also an Eidgah (the ground for the Eid prayer) in the graveyard, and some damage is occurring to it; if it is permissible, can that money be put into it, or not?

Answer

On land that is endowed as waqf for a graveyard — whether for the burial of children or for the burial of adults — building private houses is not permissible in the Shari‘a; nor should rubbish be thrown there. However, if that land is not waqf but owned property, then it is permissible in the Shari‘a for the owner to sell it; then he may use the price for his own purposes or…

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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