Though the Obama Administration insisted that the disposal of Osama bin Laden’s body was entirely in keeping with Islamic practices, there was considerable question from two fronts over the move.

 

A hot topic of debate in the United States was whether or not it was appropriate to give bin Laden an honorable burial at all, with a number of people suggesting that the military ought to have desecrated his body.

On the other hand, despite White House assurances, some Muslim clerics have insisted that putting someone’s corpse in a weighted bag and hurling them into the sea isn’t strictly in keeping with Islamic tradition.

Some expressed concern that if he had been buried on land it would have provided a site for a shrine for his followers, while still others suggested there was a danger the body would be desecrated if it was buried on land.