Boston bomb suspect's aunt: Mosque won't bury Tamerlan Tsarnaev

[Xithras]

50. Historically there's another reason for the prohibition

In fact, the prohibitions against cremation in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can all be traced back to common source.

Many primitive and animist religions revere fire, and the Middle East was dominated by fire worshippers including the Zoroastrians and Molochites during their formative centuries. Because these religions worshipped fire and were considered evil by the early Abrahamic religions, any practices that mimiced those religions were strictly banned.

FWIW, there's even a reference to this in the Bible, though very few people understand its meaning today: Leviticus 18:21, "And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Moloch". This was a reference to a fire worshipper practice where Canaanite parents would sacrifice their children to the fire god Moloch and incinerate their bodies. It appears that the Canaanites believed that incinerating the body sent the soul to the afterlife. The early Jews wanted nothing to do with that practice, for obvious reasons.

As Judaism spawned its Christian and Muslim offshoots, and as those religions worked hard to convert or conquer other "pagan" (usually fire worshipper) religions in the Middle East, the prohibition against adopting their practices simply became part of those faiths.