Osama bin Laden's burial at sea: critics range from 9/11 families to militants.

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A growing number of disparate parties, from Islamic clerics to the families of 9/11 victims, are criticizing the US decision to bury Osama bin Laden at sea.

The Obama administration said that the US chose to bury bin Laden at sea to prevent his burial site from becoming a shrine and because an unnamed country that the US asked to take his body refused. Because Islamic law mandates burial within 24 hours of death, there was no time for the US to ask other countries, counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said, according to the New York Times.

At a press conference Monday, Mr. Brennan assured reporters that his burial had been conducted "in accordance with the Islamic requirements."

But in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, the country's highest Islamic body condemned the burial at sea, Agence France-Presse reports.

"A Muslim, whatever his profession, even a criminal, their rites must be respected. There must be a prayer and the body should be wrapped in white cloth before being buried in the earth, not at sea," [Indonesia Ulema Council] chief Amidhan said. "Many others have condemned it, especially as it was done with extreme hatred against him."

Ahmad al-Tayeb, the top cleric of Egypt's prominent Al Azhar University, also slammed the decision, saying in a statement that it "runs contrary to the principles of Islamic laws, religious values, and humanitarian customs," according to Iran's PressTV. Any of the dead deserve full respect, he said, and a corpse will only be respected if it is buried in the ground.

The US defended its procedures, saying that bin Laden's body was washed and wrapped in a white cloth and "eased" it into the sea.

Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina criticized the burial on entirely different grounds. To him, rushing to bury bin Laden in order to be in accordance with Islamic law, "may have been sensitivity taken too far," Fox News reported.

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