"These people would possibly have been our neighbors if we had decided to build on that property," she said. "If this doesn't go through, we're still getting rid of it. I would never live out there now."
Annette Cutliff, a planning commission member who voted for the cemetery, was also at the meeting. "When I walked to my car, I looked over my shoulder," Cutliff said. "I was concerned because emotions were running high."
Mohammad Halimah, a Memphis businessman, supports plans for a Muslim cemetery in nearby Fayette County, Tenn. Neighbors of the property have raised concerns that the project, which may include a mosque, could be a staging ground for terrorists.
(Greg Campbell -- AP)
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Critics also complained that the cemetery could be a health hazard because Muslims traditionally do not embalm their dead.
But Muhammad Zaman, a physician and associate professor of medicine at the University of Tennessee, said the practice is safe. "The decomposition of the human body does not add anything different than what it is," Zaman said.
One neighbor, Herbert Howell, said a cemetery should not be allowed regardless of who would be buried there.
"We are not at war with all the Islamics," Howell said. "I have no problem with who they are or what they are. If it was a filling station, I wouldn't want that either."
The Muslim Society of Memphis received a "special use" zoning exemption from the planning commission, which is appointed. But a committee of the elected county commission disapproved.
"They were very concerned about votes," Cutliff said.
The application was withdrawn before a vote by the full commission.
Memphis businessman Mohammad Halimah said the group is considering several options, including refiling the request.
Halimah, a U.S. citizen with four children born in the United States, said more than 15,000 Muslims live in the Memphis area, and their small private cemetery is running out of burial space.
In the meantime, he and several colleagues are trying to meet with residents individually to discuss their concerns. No zoning change is needed for a cemetery on church grounds, so building a mosque on the site is also a possibility.
Complaints about the proposal, he said, are often based on ignorance. Some residents do not understand that Islam teaches peace.
"Our religion stresses acceptance by our neighbors," Halimah said. "Even if the law is on our side, religiously we have to be careful."
