**6. End of the Twentieth Century and Onwards**

With the cultural and political changes in the second half of the twentieth century—a marked easing of tensions between Socialism and Roman Catholicism after Vatican II—the dissenters' cemetery section took on a new function: it became the resting ground for people with a variety of non-Christian religious and diverse ethnic backgrounds, such as Chinese-Vietnamese (Hoakieu) boat refugees who came to The Netherlands during the 1970s. When the first Muslims died and wanted to be buried in Maastricht in the 1980s, the cemetery management decided to reserve a space in the dissenters' field for them as well. Tucked away in-between the Jewish section wall and the dissenters' section (see Figure 6), the Islamic graves were dug in such a way to abide by the ritual requirement of being buried facing Mecca.

Whilst the small number of deaths in the Muslim community would not have made a dedicated cemetery section necessary in the short term—the first major wave of young Muslim migrants came to The Netherlands as late as the 1960s to work *inter alia* in Maastricht's manufacturing industries—the mid-1990s saw the realization of a dedicated Islamic cemetery section (see Figure 6). The change had not only been made necessary by the growing Islamic population in the town but also by a new law—the Burial and Cremation Act 1991 (*Wet op de lijkbezorging 1991*), which stipulated that upon request, religious communities must be given a proportionate area of a municipal cemetery dedicated to them (Wet op de lijkbezorging, 1991, article 38). This largely reiterated the Burial Act of 1869, but the revision of 1991 sought to eliminate remaining obstacles for the various religious groups. In line with Islamic ritual prescriptions, Muslims were now granted "the legal possibility of burial without a coffin and within 36 hours", a provision that led to an increase in Islamic burial plots (Kadrouch-Outmany 2014, p. 89).

**Figure 6.** Schematic map indicating the Islamic sections (T.K.).

It is notable how some grave markers in this Islamic section evoke dual or multiple communities. A case in point is an Islamic grave of a Turkish woman who died in 2015 at the age of 27 (see Figure 7). The grave is situated in the Islamic section of the Tongerseweg cemetery, already indicating the religious background of the deceased. Her religious identity is also clearly visible in the two prayer beads that are draped around the headstone, and the inscriptions *Rahman ve Rahim olan Allah'in adıyla* and *Rahuna Fatiha*. The first inscription means "In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful". It is the famous *basmalah* that is recited before each *surah* in the Qur'an. It is also used in everyday life in many parts of the Arabic world as a precursor for actions, to invite God's blessings upon the action (Fani and Hayes 2017). The second inscription is a petition for the visitor of the grave to recite the first chapter of the Qur'an (the *surah al-fatiha*) to the soul of the deceased. Doing this is deemed good for both the visitor and the deceased, as *fatiha* means victory (Özdemir and Frank 2000, p. 102).

But, not only the Islamic background of the deceased woman is communicated by the headstone. At the same time, she and her mourners are introduced as members of both the Turkish and Dutch language communities. The above-mentioned inscription *rahuna Fatiha* is a phrase commonly spotted on Turkish graves and thus emphasizes the deceased's position within the Turkish community. The inscription on the left side of the gravestone seems to be a personal message, written by a family member. Expressed in it is the wish that her soul will rest in heaven and the promise that she will always live in the hearts of those left behind. Underneath, a small text in Dutch refers to the deceased as "our beloved daughter, sister, aunt and sweet mama". While the gravestone thus emphasizes the specific Islamic and Turkish backgrounds of the woman and her relatives, at the same time it speaks to a larger, primarily Dutch audience, thereby evoking membership of and addressing different communities at the same time.

**Figure 7.** A recent Islamic grave situated in the Islamic section (photograph: M.W.).
