The Ministry of Interior issued in today’s Official Gazette a brand new Regulation Governing Cemeteries. This is Oman’s first ever legal instrument that governs the cemeteries and it outlines the management, establishment, and operational standards for cemeteries along with the requirements for burial practices, cemetery maintenance, and public health compliance.
Oman’s first cemetery regulation has a notable approach to integrating public health considerations with cultural and religious practices in the management of cemeteries as it has several provisions for handling deaths caused by communicable and epidemic diseases in regard to the procedures for ghusl (washing), kafan (wrapping of the shroud), and the transportation of corpses.
The regulation also sets the outline for establishing cemeteries, the facilities required to be present in each cemetery, and a requirement for the creation of a register of graves in each governorate and the adoption of a numbering system for identifying graves.
The regulation specifies that cemeteries are designated as public Muslim cemeteries or private non-Muslim cemeteries, and sets the rules and procedures to be followed for burying Muslims and non-Muslims as well as unidentified bodies, embryos, and body limbs.
This new regulation enters into force tomorrow. You can read this decision in full in English at the link below: