“What we want is to find a peaceful solution,” Ashram Azim, the president at the Northern Nevada Muslim Community, said Friday after a busy midday prayer at our community’s local mosque on Oddie Blvd., while holding plans for an improved Muslim section at the Mountain View Cemetery in west Reno.
This follows escalated tensions, discussions over possible city meetings, inspections and threats of lawsuits after social media posts and a local television station recounted how pavers and gravel placed by individuals to ease access to parts of the Muslim section were removed by the cemetery.
The NNMC initiated a partnership with Mountain View Cemetery in west Reno in 2011 to have a special area for Muslim burials respectful of the religion’s directional aspects, at right angles to the direction of Mecca, in a specific portion sitting across a bridge over Interstate 80.
Previously, local Muslims who died here were buried in Genoa and Sacramento, where there are cemeteries with similar arrangements.
A press release from late September had previously indicated “NNMC is working closely with Mountain View Cemetery to address the requested changes to the maintenance plan and enhance the appearance of the burial site to support the requests of all families with family members buried in the Muslim section of Mountain View Cemetery.”
The statement asked for patience and urged all parties to “exercise restraint and civility in their actions and communications.”