Stop the bulldozers: the fight to save Malé's last graveyards

The long-overdue ruling offered a vital religious clarification and reversed the position of the council under the previous government. It followed the circulation of disturbing photos on social media showing the Henveiru cemetery in a state of ruin – headstones removed and piled in rubble, prepared to suffer the same fate as Maafannu.  

My constituent Xiena Saeed phoned. Her grandfather Henveiru Meerubahurugey Ali Riza's tombstone was among the tossed.

There's an old Dhivehi saying: "By the time a strategy to remove the cow from the public bath was agreed upon, the cow had died." That is exactly what has happened here.

The Maafannu cemetery has already been excavated. Sand has been filled in. The remains of our ancestors have been removed. Tombstones, the final traces of identity, memory, and history, were flattened by machinery. The past, once again, has been wiped clean.

The question that must be asked is not why the Supreme Council for Fatwa ruled as it did, but why now?

This destruction did not happen in silence. Myself, along with historians like Naajih Didi (who joined me on the Ithuru Vaahaka podcast this week), Alaa Didi, and former heritage minister Yumna Maumoon, have been raising this issue since 2022.

We sent official letters, published articles, made public appeals, and warned of irreparable damage to our cultural and historical identity. But the warnings were ignored. The bulldozers came anyway.

This is not the first time we've seen our heritage treated as disposable. During Ibrahim Nasir's tenure as prime minister (1957-68) and president (1968-78), much of Malé's Islamic and cultural heritage was demolished. Historic mosques were lost. The Grand Palace was disassembled. The Fort wall was destroyed. Cemeteries, except the one by the Friday Mosque, were leveled. Tombstones were removed.

Now, in 2025, we face the same destruction, not due to natural disaster or war, but under the banner of "urban development."

The ward cemeteries of Malé are the city's oldest. They are not "empty lots." They are living archives of our city. Generations of Malé families are buried there. These graves are not anonymous bones. They are our great-grandparents, our elders, the very people whose lives built this city.

To frame these cemeteries as "unused land" is to fundamentally misunderstand their value. These are not just spaces for the dead. They are places of remembrance, identity, and community.

Human dignity does not end at death. How a society treats its dead speaks volumes about its values. The removal of graves for profit or convenience is not simply a bad decision. It is a moral failure.

Cemeteries in Malé also represent some of the last open green spaces in our densely built-up city. In a place overwhelmed by concrete, noise, and congestion, these quiet spaces are needed, not just for memory, but for mental and environmental health. Around the world, historic cemeteries are preserved not as relics, but also as urban sanctuaries.

Some may argue that grave relocation is religiously permissible. Others refer to the Prophet's Mosque expansion in Medina. But permissibility does not equal necessity. Divorce is permissible too, but is it something we casually seek?

The Prophet's Mosque was expanded out of urgent necessity to accommodate a rapidly growing global ummah. Malé faces no such compulsion under Islamic shariah and law.

More importantly, ample land is available across the capital. Government-controlled plots lie idle, walled off and under-utilised like on Ameenee Magu. If development is needed, why not start there?

Rather than destroy what remains, we must reimagine and preserve. The Maafannu cemetery could have been integrated into the living city without disturbing graves. A public walkway connecting Majeedhee Magu to Muniyaa Magu, and Handhuvaree Hingun to Izzudheen Magu, would have opened up the space for public use, reflection, and rest.

This has been done across the world. Cities like London, Istanbul, and Cairo have preserved historic cemeteries as parks, cultural sites, and green havens, recognising that the modern city is richer when it carries its past forward, not bulldozes it.

Mayor Adam Azim has stated that the cemetery redevelopment was a decision made by the previous council in 2019, and that he is simply following through. But if that is the case, why has he not followed through on the 2019 original plan for parking buildings?

Since 2019, the Decentralisation Act has been amended, and Malé's Land Use Plan (LUP) has been approved following city-wide public consultations. The public clearly rejected building over ward cemeteries during open consultative meetings. The new LUP does not sanction it either. How can the mayor still hide behind old mandates when the law has changed, and the LUP clearly lays out a different vision for urban development?

We still have time to act, but only just. I call on the Islamic ministry, heritage authorities, and the President's Office to intervene in order to:

As a member of the Malé City Council, my request for a formal meeting with the heritage minister and technical staff to present alternative approaches grounded in faith, heritage, and the law, has gone unheard.

I urge Mayor Adam Azim and the ruling party-led council to stop measuring value solely in monetary terms. In a city as historically rich and spatially constrained as Malé, land must not be reduced to just Rufiyaa per square foot. This island has been the heart of Maldivian identity for centuries, its value lies not only in what it can earn, but in what it preserves. At this rate we risk waking up in a city that no longer remembers who it is, or where it came from.

Saif Fathih is a columnist at the Maldives Independent and a serving member of the Malé City Council for Galolhu North. With his educational background in communications, international studies and public policy, he previously worked as a journalist, editor and public policy advisor, with roles including senior policy director at the ministry of national planning and editor of Ocean Weekly Magazine. Saif began his career as a radio producer and presenter at Minivan Radio, writer for Minivan Daily, and translator for the British High Commission and the European Union Mission to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. He is also the host of Ithuru Vaahaka, the Maldives Independent podcast.