Why do Muslims bury dead bodies instead of burning them?

In Islam, the deceased is to be buried within 24 hours.
The 24-hour burial is not in the Qur'an but is a cultural practice from the faith's desire to respect the body and to avoid decay.
"Also, Prophet Mohammed SAW said. "This is disrespecting the body."

"Muslims don't normally use coffins, they just bury in the ground, where it (the body) becomes part of the soil," He said. "The upper part of the body, the head, is turned toward Mecca.

"We respect the deceased just as if they were alive. The washing and the wrapping with a shroud (an enveloping garment in which a dead person is wrapped for burial) are done carefully. We do not allow viewing of the body except for the immediate family after the washing."

In Quraan, it is clearly stated that "And indeed we created man (Adam) out of the extract of clay (water and earth)." 
{Surat Al-Mu'minun (The Believers): 12}.

Components of a human body are present in the soil
According to science the chemical structure of the human body confirms the relation between man and clay. The human body consists mainly of water (54% to 70% or more) in addition to protein (11% to 17%), fat (14% to 26%), and other several substances and inorganic components (5% to 6%).  According to the chemical analysis of the basic substances of the human body, we can see that it is composed of the following elements:
·        Oxygen 65%.
·        Carbon 18%
·        Hydrogen 10%.
·        Nitrogen 3%.
·        Calcium 1.4%.
·        Phosphorous 7% etc.
The components of the human body correspond in general with the chemical composition of soil when combined with water, i.e. clay.
Elements that are present in the human body are present in lesser or greater quantity in the soil.
Hence it is more scientific to bury a dead body, as it easily gets decomposed and mixed in the
soil. So, it is better for the soil to have those elements which it gets if the body is decomposed into the soil.

No Pollution
Air pollution and deforestation are not the only environmental threats caused by cremation, they also generate large quantities of ash, which are later thrown into rivers, adding to the toxicity of their waters.
Cremating (burning) the dead body leads to pollution of the atmosphere which is detrimental to health and harmful for the environment. It is the duty of us to stop these emissions, to stop the release of harmful gases. During cremation, a huge amount of gases are released by the burning of woods which creates more pollution. There is no such pollution caused by burying a dead body.

Surrounding land becomes fertile
To cremate a dead body several trees have to be chopped, which reduces the greenery and harms the environment and the ecology. When dead bodies are buried, besides the trees being saved, the surrounding land becomes fertile and it improves the environment.

Economical
It is expensive to cremate a dead body when tons of wood have to be burned. Annually there is a loss of lots of money, only because dead bodies are cremated.
Burying dead bodies is very cheap. It hardly costs any money.

The same land can be utilized for burying another body
The wood used for cremating a dead body cannot be reutilized for cremating another dead body
since it gets converted to ashes and it's an irreversible process. But the land used for burying a dead body can be reutilized for burying another body after a few years since the human body gets decomposed and mixed in the soil.

According to Islam and Science, both have been proved that for the betterment of the environment, the dead bodies should be buried and not cremated (or burned) yet the people tend to follow their individual religious beliefs but from the environmental point of view, it must preferably be buried rather burning the dead ones.


JazakAllah Khair