In Japan, a Muslim community’s ‘straightforward request’ to bury its dead stirs hostility

In September 2020, the Beppu Muslim Association believed it was close to securing approval from the town of Hiji, on the southern island of Kyushu, to establish a cemetery where Muslims could be laid to rest, at variance with the Japanese tradition of cremation.

Today, association head Muhammad Tahir Abbas Khan laments that this goal remains elusive – and that misleading reports in traditional media and on social platforms have helped block what he describes as a “straightforward request” in a nation that otherwise allows other faiths to bury their dead.

“I cannot believe I am having to take this step,” said Khan, who has lived in Japan since 2001, became a Japanese national more than a decade ago and is a professor at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Beppu, Oita prefecture.

According to Khan, the YouTuber claimed that he was attempting to turn Japan into a Muslim-majority nation and that his efforts to secure a graveyard were merely the first step in this campaign.