Nestled in a small alley on Arun Amarin Road, Tonson cemetery has stood next to the community mosque for over three centuries. This is probably the country's oldest "kubur", Islamic burial grounds, dating back to the time before the founding of Bangkok as the capital.
The leafy graveyard under which lies nine bodies of Chulalaratchamontri, or Sheikul Islam, is an example of one startling fact. As modernity and the force of land development drastically alters the look of Bangkok, century-old Islamic burial grounds remain unchanged, in Silom, Sathon and Thon Buri, even as many of them are now surrounded by skyscrapers. Cemeteries of other faiths, such as the Catholic grounds in Silom and Santa Cruz Mission in Thon Buri, or the Chinese cemeteries in many locations, have moved out of the city to find larger plots of land in the provinces. That migration of the dead took place after Bangkok issued a municipal ordinance in 2003 that set a new rule for cemeteries, making it harder to open new graveyards.
And as land use becomes more intensified by commercial pressure, it looks like the Islamic kubur is one of the last strongholds of traditional belief and community spirit.
"Bangkok has changed and the country has changed, but I am convinced that Muslim cemeteries will remain the same. Of course, the price of land increases but the faith of communities seems to be higher," says Teeranun Chuangpichit, director of Thon Buri Historical Information Center.
Faith, death and the community
The reason Muslim cemeteries survive the march of progress is partially religious practice.
"The Koran forbids the tampering of graveyards. Muslims have been taught not to move or relocate our cemeteries, and those of other faiths too," says Teeranun, who's also a Muslim. Muslim communities have also been known for the fierce protection of their own identity and Islamic way of life. Ban Krua, a community in Charoen Phon area, successfully pressured the state to scrap the plan for a section of expressway that would require the eviction of the community.
Most Islamic graveyards are usually located next to the mosque in the community, and a number of Muslim communities are in the old town areas, such as Charoen Krung, Sathon and Thon Buri, often close to the Chao Phraya River. Naturally, these areas are sought after by commercial developers.
Haroon community on Charoen Krung, which has stood there for nearly 200 years, is a clear example. With prime location near the river and neighbouring the Mandarin Oriental hotel, about five minutes to Silom, the area is coveted by developers. There were offers to purchase the land from the community at an astonishingly high price -- easily a few billion baht.
View of Haroon Musjid in Charoen Krung 36.
"The answer is no. All residents of the community resisted the idea of selling the land," says Vuddhi Homchuen, a 79-year-old assistant to the imam of Haroon.
A strong sense of community is one reason that saves many kubur -- the village mentality in a big city -- and the land-sharing practice in Muslim graveyards also makes it easier for the communities to keep their funeral practices. Walking in Haroon cemeteries, strangers might think they're in a community garden, with tall trees and pleasant paths for children to play and adults to exercise. But Vuddhi reminds us that underneath the ground are a large number of dead bodies going through decomposition into the soil. He estimates that a few thousand bodies have been buried in a small 1 rai plot over the past 100 years or so.
The small plot can accommodate so many bodies because it is permitted, after a considerable amount of time, to bury one body on top of another. There are no markers for each body here, and families who come to pay respect to their ancestors during Islamic festivals need to remember the location of the graves. However, this is not a religious dictum. At Jawa Mosque, another old Muslim community in Sathon near the expressway, each grave has a wooden nameplate, or "tanor", to mark the body. At Tonson cemetery, there are even carved and decorated tombstones.
Still, no matter how beautiful those tombstones look, no family can monopolise the land, and the tradition of multilayered burial is strictly observed.
Despite this, many kubur also face problems of space. Traditional cemeteries, such as Haroon, Tonson and Jawa, found the cemetery space does not have sufficient room, with dozens of new bodies buried every year at each location.
"From time to time, we need to add more soil to create more land," says Teeranun of Tonson community.
Environmental concern
Last year, residents of Farmersville in Texas protested against the opening of a kubur on the land purchased by a local Muslim community. One of the reasons was health and environmental concerns, since residents were worried about "seepage" fluid from the corpses.
Most Islamic practices require the dead body to be buried in three to five layers of white cloth, and placed inside a coffin made from simple plywood that will decompose after a few years. Buddhists largely go for cremation, while Christianity prefers large, sealed coffins.
The city's regulations imposing health and environmental requirements in cemeteries came out in 2003. The ordinances generally require the cemeteries to be situated at least 100m from rivers and public waterways, and having a wall or other measures to prevent waste.
However, most cemeteries in Bangkok were built and existed before the new regulations, but still there have never been any complaints or concerns about the health and environmental issues.
Teeranun says the question about seepage comes from fear. He says that, like all organic matter, corpses slowly decompose and become soil. The burial spot is not randomly picked, he says. It usually takes around five years before a new body can be buried near or on top of the same spot in the ground.
Islam, he says, has a code of practice that prevents the kubur from being located on a river bank, in order to safeguard against flood and waste. "God creates us from soil, and within the graveyard, each body will be decomposed and transformed into soil."
Since many old cemeteries lie not far from the river, however, flooding has become a problem. From time to time communities need to put in landfill in order to raise the ground of their cemeteries and comply with the BMA's ordinance that requires graveyards to stay higher than flood water.
A major redevelopment took place at Tonson in 1992, after a big flood and the overflowing of water from Bangkok Yai canal inundated the cemetery. Teeranun was asked to supervise the cemetery redevelopment project which took two years to complete.
The revamping of the old graveyard was a huge task, especially when all the bodies had to remain in the same place. It required mapping and locating recent corpses before exhuming the remains in order to level the land. After that the bodies and the remains were buried back in the same location.
"Muslim cemeteries are burial grounds, yes, but in another dimension, it serves as a green space, or the garden for the community," says Teeranun.
"Green areas are scarce in Bangkok, and perhaps a kubur might be the most protected green space there is."
New neighbours
The kubur may be an oasis of calm in the bustling city, unperturbed by the pressure. But still, the force of change is clearly closing in.
Unlike many, Tonson Muslim cemetery near Khlong Bangkok Yai in Thon Buri area permits families to provide a tombstone.
The Jawa community in Sathon found the expressway rising almost exactly above their heads years ago. Vuddhi, an assistant at Haroon Mosque, remembers the day when he looked up and saw the open sky; not any more, for the view is now blocked by high-rise buildings all around his enclave. Ban Ou Mosque and cemetery is right next to Robinson Department Store in Bang Rak; from its parking lot, you can look down and see the graves.
As Bangkok is going through more infrastructure construction, the Muslim cemeteries may have a lot of new neighbours. An example is the Plai Na cemetery, Dawadi Bohra cemetery, and the cemetery of Dewan Charoenpas Foundation -- all of them located near the in-construction Pho Sam Ton subway station in Bangkok Yai.
The future of the three Muslim cemeteries may be safe, but the land around them will be fully developed as the town planning law allows the land within a kilometre of subway stations to be used for full-scale commercial development including high-rises. The tension between modernity and tradition will continue, and probably more sharply.
"We may be able to protect the kubur but we cannot prevent the changing environment," says Teeranun.
After all, the ironic scene of a small cemetery being surrounded by gleaming shopping complexes and towering high-rises might remind us that sometimes commercial land development cannot have it all.
Teeranun Chuangpichit, director of Thon Buri Historical Information Centre.
Tonson Muslim cemetery near Klong Bangkok Yai in Thon Buri area.
View of Ban U Musjid on Charoen Krung 46.
