Do Terrorists deserve a proper Muslim burial?

The controversy and resentment surrounding the proper Muslim burial given to the Somali Minnesotan suicide bomber, Shirwa Ahmed, last week is simmering within the conservative blogs and some commentary sites. Ahmed was buried at a Muslim cemetery in Burnsville, Minnesota after the FBI shipped his corpse back to Minnesota. Fox news reported that Ahmed was neither hailed as a hero nor was he condemned as a killer but buried and the last rites performed on him as an ordinary Muslim.

This causes a PR nightmare for Somalis and Muslims in general. Ahmed, an unrepentant terrorist, took innocent lives down with him. Thus, giving him a proper burial sends the wrong signals that the community isn’t doing enough to condemn terrorism. The Somali community would have done a great service—to mend relations with the mainstream society—for themselves had they taken a stance similar to the one the Indian Muslims adopted. Influential Indian Muslim clerics refused to give burial service to the nine gunned down Mumbai terrorists.

The men are not true followers of the Islamic faith, according to the influential Muslim Jama Masjid Trust, which runs the 7.5-acre (three-hectare) Badakabrastan graveyard in downtown Mumbai.

"People who committed this heinous crime cannot be called Muslim," said Hanif Nalkhande, a trustee. "Islam does not permit this sort of barbaric crime."

I wonder whether the Somali community believes that Ahmed was a true believer who died for an Islamic cause.