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Township board in Dakota County approves Muslim cemetery's request

The Castle Rock Board of Supervisors approved a prayer room and ritual washing area along with an equipment shed.

By Erin Adler

July 13, 2022 at 2:17AM

The request for more facilities at a Muslim cemetery near Farmington, Minn., received support such as that expressed by this sign in a car last month. (Aaron Lavinsky - Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

About 60 people gathered at the Castle Rock township hall Tuesday as the board of supervisors approved a Muslim cemetery's request to use a building on site as a prayer room and space for ritual washing for burial.

More than a dozen people brought signs saying "We support Al Maghfirah Cemetery."

The town board unanimously approved the permit on the condition that the cemetery either put up fencing or plant trees as screening anywhere the cemetery abuts houses.

Board member B.J. Elvestad said there was a lot of support and most concerns were about details of the cemetery's use, he said.

Members of the Somali community handed out donuts and cookies after the approval.

"The majority of residents today said no to hate," said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "This cemetery is going to serve the metro-area Muslim community for more than 100 years."

The permit allows a prayer room or mosque and a space for bodies to be washed without chemicals or embalming and a second structure to hold cemetery equipment, including an excavator to dig graves and landscaping equipment.

The 73-acre cemetery in a rural area near Farmington will provide a final resting place for members of the Muslim community, which has just one other cemetery accepting new burials in the metro area. That cemetery is in Burnsville.

Hussein said the cemetery's location in a rural area allowed for a larger cemetery that will have space for burials longer.

Hussein said the cemetery had been vandalized in recent years, and buildings there had sustained hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. Such incidents aren't isolated, he said.

"I think the big thing is that Muslims continue to face challenges with land use opposition for cemeteries and mosques," he said.

Some upgrades to buildings and roads near the cemetery will occur within the next year, Hussein said.

Last month, the board of supervisors held a public hearing that drew more than 100 people, most of them supporting the project. At a public hearing in June, many attendees said they supported Muslims' desire to naturally bury their family members with dignity and in a "green" manner, without embalming.

A few audience members said they worried about groundwater contamination affecting local wells, while others said the property had not been well-maintained in the years since it was bought in 2014.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has advocated for the cemetery since 2015.

about the writer

Erin Adler

Reporter

Erin Adler is a suburban reporter covering Dakota and Scott counties for the Minnesota Star Tribune, working breaking news shifts on Sundays. She previously spent three years covering K-12 education in the south metro and five months covering Carver County.