Write burial instructions on a separate document and give them to whoever will be deciding. A will read after burial cannot govern it.
The Canadian position
Write burial instructions on a separate document and give them to whoever will be deciding. A will read after burial cannot govern it.
Provincial law governs validity, administration and the grounds on which a will can be challenged — so the answer can change if you move.
The Islamic position
Have the faraid shares recalculated whenever the family configuration changes; they are conditional on who survives.
Record the reasoning and the scholar consulted in a memorandum kept with the will.
On the cemetery the jurists agree, and the agreement carries its own exception. The Kuwaiti encyclopaedia records that they agreed it is forbidden to bury a Muslim in a cemetery of non-Muslims, and a non-Muslim in a Muslim one, except where necessity requires it — so a community with no Muslim ground is not outside the classical rule but inside its stated exception. Where the schools genuinely differ is on moving the body. The Maliki school is much the widest: it alone permits transport after burial, and among the purposes it names is digging up someone who accepted Islam and was buried in a non-Muslim cemetery so as to rebury him among Muslims. The Hanafi, Shafi’i and Hanbali schools bar transfer after burial — except that the Hanbalis allow exhumation to move a body to a better resting place. Reopening a grave at all is forbidden by agreement before the body decays unless there is a necessity or a lawful purpose.
All four Sunni schools researched and sourced. Reviewed 2026-09-01. Full positions, evidence and sources — Must a Muslim be buried in a Muslim cemetery?.
Related madhhab issue: Ghusl, kafan and salat al-janazah — who performs them?.
Making an Islamic will in Canada — province by province, and what makes one valid where you live →
What to do about it
- Recalculate the shares for the new circumstances.
- Update the will with a lawyer in your province.
- Review every beneficiary designation.
- Confirm where the original is kept.
This is legal information only. For advice on your own circumstances, speak to a lawyer.
Citations & sources
Every factual claim on this page traces to a source below. Details change — check the original source before relying on any figure, fee or legal position. Anything under “further reading” is related material, not a source for what is stated here.
- What to do when someone dies — Government of Ontario
- Cremation vs burial instructions executor follow ontario — Treadstone Law
- Beneficiary designation vs will which controls — Treadstone Law
- Will vs beneficiary designation which controls — Treadstone Law
- Beneficiary designation and family law ontario — Treadstone Law
- Wills & estates practice — Treadstone Law