Conclusion

Modern medical knowledge has become an indispensable part of global culture, which is informed largely by modern science and its far-reaching ability to explain all types of natural phenomena including the constitution of the human body itself and the extent to which it differs from other living organisms.

Notes

* This chapter was made possible by NPRP grant # NPRP8-1478-6-053 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). The statements made herein are solely the respon­sibility of the author.

1 This was the vision that Van Rensselaer Potter, who is considered one of the founders and pioneers of modern bioethics, proposed. See his ‘Bioethics, the Science of Survival', Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 14 (1970), 127—53; and Bioethics: Bridge to the Future (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1971). For a general overview of the development of the field, see Albert Jonsen, The Birth of Bioethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

2 Lewis Vaughn, Bioethics: Principles, Issues, and Cases (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 3—22.

3 For an overview of the range of ethical thought in the Islamic tradition, see George Hourani, Rea­son and Tradition in Islamic Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Majid Fakhry, Ethical Theories in Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1994); Muhammad Abid al-Jabiri, Al-Aql al-Akhlaqi al-Arabi (Beirut: Markaz Dirasat al-Wihda al-'Arabiyya, 2006).

4 See my ‘Bioethics in Islamic Thought', Religion Compass 8/11 (2014): 337—46.

5 See, for example, Abdulaziz Sachedina, Islamic Biomedical Ethics: Principles and Application (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 40 (exploring the development of practical ethics in the Islamic normative tradition in two sciences: ethics of action infiqh and ethics of character in akhlaq); Kevin Reinhart, ‘Islamic Law as Islamic Ethics', The Journal of Religious Ethics 11 (1983): 186—203.

6 See Fazlur Rahman, Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 100—16.

7 Franz Rosenthal, ‘The Defense of Medicine in the Medieval Muslim World', Bulletin of the History of Medicine 43 (1969): 519—32 (listing three main types of attack against medicine in the form of: a religious argument that it would conflict with religious faith; a secular argument questioning its healing effect; and the argument that medicine is quite difficult and hard to attain).

Juristic discourses on the preservation of human life would include: discussions on the protection of potential human life as in the case of the debate on abortion; protection of existing human life as in the case with the debate on homicide or suicide; or even protection of the human body after death as in the case of the ban against mutilation of dead bodies or the debate on anatomy.

'Izz al-Din Abd al- Aziz ibn Abd al-Salam, Al-Qawaid al-Kubra, al-Mawsum bi-Qawaid al-Ahkam fi Islah al-Anam, 2 vols, ed. Nazih Kamal Hammad and 'Uthman Jum 'a Dumayriyya (Damascus: Dar al-Qalam, 2000), 1:8.

Abd al-Rahman b. Muhammad b. Khaldun, Muqaddimat Ibn Khaldun, ed. Hamid Ahmad al-Tahir (Cairo: Dar al-Fajr li-l-Turath, 2004), 610 (noting that medical issues included in Prophetic reports should be seen as part of the customary practices associated with Arabic culture during the lifetime of the Prophet rather than an essential part of Shari 'ah'). See also Rahman, Health and Medicine in the Islamic Tradition, 32—3.

Abu Dawud Sulayman ibn al-Ash 'ath al-Sijstani, Sunan Abi Dawud, 3 vols, ed. Muhammad Abd al- Aziz al-Khalidi (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al- Ilmiya, 2007), 3:192.

Abd al-Qadir Awda, Al-Tashri' al-Jinai al-Islami Muqaranan bi-l-Qanun al-Wad'i, 2 vols (Cairo: Maktabat Dar al-Turath, 2003), 1:448—52; Muhammad Sallam Madkur, Nazariyyat al-Ibaha 'inda al-Usuliyyin wa-l-Fuqaha, Bahth Muqaran (Cairo: Dar al-Nahda al- 'Arabiyya, 1984), 458—61; Ahmad Sharaf al-Din, al-Ahkam al-Shariyya li-l-A'mal al-Tibbiyya (Cairo: NP, 1987), 41.

Sharaf al-Din, al-Ahkam al-Shariyya, 43.

Awda, Al-Tashri^! al-Jinai al-Islami, 1:449—51.

Ibn Hajar al- Asqalani, Fath al-Bari bi-Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari, 13 vols (Cairo: Maktabat al- 'Ilm, 2000), 10:153 (Kitab al-Tibb).

For example, one report includes reference to 70,000 entering paradise without questioning. Ac­cording to the report, they did not resort to incantation, evil omen or cauterization but they instead placed their trust in God. See Ibn Hajar al- Asqalani, Fat-h al-Bari bi-Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari, 11:448 (Kitab al-Riqaq).

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Zad al-Maadfi Hady Khayr al-'Ibad, 6 vols, ed. Shu 'ayb al-Arna’ut and 'Abd al-Qadir al-Arna’ut (Beirut: Mu’ssasat al-Risala, 1998), 4:13. See also Ibn Hajar, Fat-h al-Bari, 10:153—4 and 11:452—3. The Shafi 'i jurist Abu Hamid al-Ghazali divides the causal connection between treatment and healing into three main types: definitive (maqtu'), speculative (maznun), and imaginary (mawhum). The meaning of reliance on God differs for each of these types. For example, the first type is illustrated by the occurrence of satiation after eating bread and in this case true reliance on God means observing, considering and fulfilling this causal connection. Disregarding this connection would be prohibited, especially if it leads to death. The third type is illustrated by cauterization because its curative effect cannot be confirmed. In this case, reliance on God means disregarding this type of treatment. The second type covers a wide range of medical procedures such as cupping, whose curative effect is only speculative. This type occupies an intermediary stage between the first and the third types and is subject to the discretion of the individual: observing this type is not antithetical to true reliance on God (as is the case with the third type) and disregarding it is not prohibited (as is the case with the first type). See Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Ghazali, Ihya Ulum al-Din, 5 vols, ed. Abd al-Mu 'ti Amin Qal 'aji (Beirut: Dar Sadir, n.d.), 4:350.

For example, al-Ghazali listed some situations in which, he argued, avoiding medical treatment could be preferable, as is the case when: the person believes, on the basis of gnostic knowledge (kashf) that his life-term has come to an end and that medical treatment is of no use; the person is so occupied by his spiritual condition and concern for salvation in the hereafter that he cannot attend to his physical ailment, which makes him less responsive to the instructions of the treating physician; the person suffers from a chronic disease with no known or certain cure; the person intends illness as a means to increase his record of good deeds or expiate past sins; the person fears that treating his illness would affect his self-consciousness and increase the level of distraction.

Abd al-Fattah Mahmud Idris, Hukm al-Tadawi bi-l-Muharramat, Bahth Fiqhi Muqaran (Cairo: NP, 1993), 8—32; Ali Muhammad Yusuf al-Muhammadi, ‘Hukm al-Tadawi fi al-Islam’, Majallat Majma al-Fiqh al-Islami 7 (1992): 602—8; al-Mawsua al-Fiqhiyya, 45 vols (Kuwait: Wazarat al-Awqaf wa-l- Shu’un al-Islamiyya, 2008), 11:115—18.

20 On the extent to which the jurists discussed the impact of illness on one's ability to discharge one's legal-religious duties, see Ahmad b. Ibrahim b. Khalil, Ahkam al-Marda, ed. Muhammad Surur Muhammad Murad al-Balkhi (Kuwait: Wazarat al-Awqaf wa al-Shu’un al-Islamiyya, 1997). The international Islamic Fiqh Academy, affiliated with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, dis­cussed the issue of seeking medical treatment in its seventh conference (held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 9—14 May 1992). Its resolution indicates that in principle seeking medical treatment is legitimate but the exact ruling may vary for different individuals depending on specific circumstances. For exam­ple, it can be obligatory if avoiding medical treatment would result in one's death, incapacity or fail­ure of one's organs. It would also be obligatory in cases where one's disease would transmit to others if left untreated, as is the case with contagious diseases. If the disease would result in mere weakness in the body rather than death or loss of organs, treatment in this case would be recommended but not obligatory. Apart from these two cases, medical treatment would be just permissible. Finally medical treatment would be reprehensible in cases where it would lead to further complications or deterioration of the health condition. See Majallat Majma al-Fiqh al-Islami 7 (1992): 731—2.

21 For a similar discussion on the question of contagion and juristic deliberations over its impact on the transmission of diseases, see Justin Stearns, ‘Enduring the Plague: Ethical Behavior in the Fat­was of a Fourteenth Century Mufti and Theologian', in Muslim Medical Ethics: from Theory to Practice, ed. Jonathan E.

22 Birgit Krawietz, ‘Shari'ah and Medical Ethics', in The Ashgate Research Companion to Islamic Law, ed. Rudolph Peters and Peri Bearman (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2014), 292.

23 See, for example, Wael Hallaq, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 1 (making reference to the description of Shariah as the lifeblood of Islam). See also my ‘Religious and Cultural Legitimacy of Bioethics: Lessons from Islamic Bioethics', Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 16 (2013): 6717.

24 Some scholars, however, point out gaps within the current juristic discourses on biomedical issues and emphasize the inadequacy of classical legal methodology in addressing the new questions that they generate. See for example, Sachedina, Islamic Biomedical Ethics, 44 and Ebrahim Moosa, ‘Mus­lim Ethics and Biotechnology', in The Routledge Companion to Religion and Science, ed. James W. Haag et al. (New York: Routledge, 2012), 460.

25 See, for example, Muhammad Sulayman al-Ashqar, Abhath Ijtihadiyya fi al-Fiqh al-Tibbi (Amman, Jordan: Dar al-Nafa’is, 2006).

26 The fatwa literature is usually singled out as one of the important resources for the study of Muslim perspectives on bioethical issues. See, for example, Vardit Rispler-Chaim, Islamic Medical Ethics in the Twentieth Century (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 3.

27 Mohammed Ghaly, ‘Islamic Bioethics in the Twenty-First Century', Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 48 (2013): 592-9.

28 Muzaffar Iqbal, Science and Islam (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), 182; Mohammed Ghaly, ‘Biomedical Scientists as Co-Muftis: Their Contribution to Contemporary Islamic Bioethics', Die Welt Des Islams 55 (2015): 286-311 (discussing the problems involved in this collaboration between religious scholars and medical experts).

29 Khalid Husayn al-Khalid, Al-Ijtihad al-Jama i fi al-Fiqh al-Islami (Dubai: Markaz Juma al-Majid li-l-Thaqafa wa-l-Turath, 2009), 79. See also Mohammed Ali al-Bar and Hassan Chamsi-Basha, Contemporary Bioethics: Islamic Perspective (New York: Springer, 2015) 9-15.

30 See, for example, Morgan Clarke, Islam and New Kinship, Reproductive Technology and the Shari’ah in Lebanon (New York: Berghahn Books, 2009) and Marcia Inhorn, The New Arab Man: Emergent Masculinities, Technologies, and Islam in the Middle East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 201-2.

31 Jad al-Haqq Ali Jad al-Haqq, Bayan li-l-Nas (Cairo: Dar al-Faruq, 2014), 691-4; Sachedina, Islamic Biomedical Ethics, 177.

32 Jad al-Haqq, Bayan li-l-Nas, 695-9. For more on the debate on organ donation within the Muslim context, see Sherine Hamdy, Our Bodies Belong to God: Organ Transplants, Islam, and the Struggle for Human Dignity in Egypt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012) and Farhat Moazam, Bioethics and Organ Transplantation in a Muslim Society: A Study in Culture, Ethnography, and Religion (Bloomingdale: Indiana University Press, 2006).

33 For example, Muzaffar Iqbal notes ‘over a period of time, a certain pattern seems to have emerged in responses of Muslim jurists to issues arising out of new scientific and technological develop­ments: most jurists first oppose the practice whereas a minority allows it; with time, the practice becomes prevalent and a de facto acceptance is then granted'. See Iqbal, Science and Islam, 184.

34 Muhammad Ali al-Bar, Khalq al-Insan bayna al-Tibb wa-l-Quran (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: al-Dar al-Sa'udiyya lil-Nashr wa-l-Tawzi', 1984), 452; A’isha Ahmad Salim Hasan, Al-Ahkam al-Mutalliqa bi-l-Hamlfi al-Fiqh al-Islami (Beirut: al-Mu’assasa al-Jami'iyya li-l-Dirasat wa-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzi', 2008), 23.

35 Hasan, Al-Ahkam al-Mutalliqa bi-l-Haml, 24; Wael Hallaq, Sharia: Theory, Practice, and Transforma­tion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 464.

36 See for example, Khalid al-Mad-hkur et al. (eds), Al-Haya al-Insaniyya: Bidayatuha wa-Nihayatuha fi al-Mafhum al-Islami (Kuwait: al-Munazzama al-Islamiyya li-l-Ulum al-Tibbiyya, 1985) and Ahmad al-Jindi et al. (eds), Al-Tarif al-Tibbi li-l-Mawt (Kuwait: al-Munazzama al-Islamiyya li­l-' Ulum al-Tibbiyya, 2000). For commentaries on these deliberations, see Mohammed Ghaly, ‘The Beginning of Human Life: Islamic Bioethical Perspectives', Zygon 47 (2012): 175—213; Ebrahim Moosa, ‘Language of Change in Islamic Law: Redefining Death in Modernity', Islamic Studies 38 (1999); 305—42; Aasim Padela et al., ‘Medical Experts Islamic Scholars Deliberating Over Brain Death: Gaps in the Applied Islamic Bioethics Discourse', The Muslim World 101 (2011): 53-72.

37 See, for example, Thomas Eich, ‘Decision-Making Processes among Contemporary Ulama, Islamic Embryology and the Discussion of Frozen Embryos', in Muslim Medical Ethics from Theory to Practice, ed. Jonathan Brockopp and Thomas Eich (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2008), 61-75.

38 See my ‘Foundations of the Consensus against Surrogacy Arrangements in Islamic Law', Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015): 82-113.

39 One of the main sources of guidelines for this issue has been the decision of the Islamic Fiqh Coun­cil issued in 2002, see Majallat al-Majma al-Fiqhi al-Islami 15 (2002): 478-81.

40 See my ‘Islamic Law of Paternity between Classical Legal Texts and Modern Contexts: From Phys­iognomy to DNA Analysis', Journal of Islamic Studies 25 (2014): 1-32.

Select bibliography and further reading

Ashqar, Muhammad Sulayman al-. Abhath Ijtihadiyyafi al-Fiqh al-Tibbi (Amman, Jordan: Dar al-Nafa’is, 2006).

Bar, Muhammad Ali al-. Khalq al-Insan bayna al-Tibb wa-l-Quran (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: al-Dar al-Sa'udiyya li-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzi', 1984).

Bar, Mohammed 'Ali al-, and Hassan Chamsi-Basha. Contemporary Bioethics: Islamic Perspective (New York: Springer, 2015).

Clarke, Morgan. Islam and New Kinship, Reproductive Technology and the Shari’ah in Lebanon (New York: Berghahn Books, 2009).

Eich, Thomas. ‘Decision-Making Processes among Contemporary Ulama, Islamic Embryology and the Discussion of Frozen Embryos'. In Muslim Medical Ethicsfrom Theory to Practice, ed. Jonathan Brockopp and Thomas Eich (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2008).

Fakhry, Majid. Ethical Theories in Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1994).

Ghaly, Mohammed. ‘The Beginning of Human Life: Islamic Bioethical Perspectives'. Zygon 47 (2012): 175-213.

Ghaly, Mohammed. ‘Islamic Bioethics in the Twenty-First Century'. Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 48 (2013): 592-9.

Ghaly, Mohammed. ‘Biomedical Scientists as Co-Muftis: Their Contribution to Contemporary Islamic Bioethics'. Die Welt Des Islams 55 (2015): 286-311.

Hamdy, Sherine. Our Bodies Belong to God: Organ Transplants, Islam, and the Struggle for Human Dignity in Egypt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012).

Hasan, 'A’isha Ahmad Salim. Al-Ahkam al-Mutalliqa bi-l-Hamlfi al-Fiqh al-Islami (Beirut: al-Mu’assasa al-Jami'iyya li-l-Dirasat wa-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzi', 2008).

Hopley, Russell. ‘Contagion in Islamic Lands: Responses from Medieval Andalusia and North Africa'. Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies 10 (2010): 45-64.

Hourani, George. Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

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Moazam, Farhat. Bioethics and Organ Transplantation in a Muslim Society: A Study in Culture, Ethnography, and Religion (Bloomingdale: Indiana University Press, 2006).

Moosa, Ebrahim. ‘Language of Change in Islamic Law: Redefining Death in Modernity’. Islamic Stud­ies 38 (1999): 305-42.

Moosa, Ebrahim. ‘Muslim Ethics and Biotechnology’. In The Routledge Companion to Religion and Sci­ence, ed. James W. Haag et al. (New York: Routledge, 2012).

Muhammadi, Ali Muhammad Yusuf. ‘Hukm al-Tadawi fi al-Islam’. Majallat Majma' al-Fiqh al-Islami 7 (1992): 599-662.

Padela, Aasim et al. ‘Medical Experts Islamic Scholars Deliberating Over Brain Death: Gaps in the Applied Islamic Bioethics Discourse’. The Muslim World 101 (2011): 53-72.

Potter, Van Rensselaer. ‘Bioethics, the Science of Survival’. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 14 (1970): 127-53.

Potter, Van Rensselaer. Bioethics: Bridge to the Future (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1971). Rahman, Fazlur. Health and Medicine in the Islamic Tradition (Chicago: ABC International Group, 1998). Rispler-Chaim, Vardit. Islamic Medical Ethics in the Twentieth Century (Leiden: Brill, 1993).

Rosenthal, Franz. ‘The Defense of Medicine in the Medieval Muslim World’. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 43 (1969): 519-32.

Sachedina, Abdulaziz. Islamic Biomedical Ethics: Principles and Application (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

Shabana, Ayman. ‘Religious and Cultu ral Legitimacy of Bioethics: Lessons from Islamic Bioethics’. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 16 (2013): 671-7.

Shabana, Ayman. ‘Bioethics in Islamic Thought’. Religion Compass 8/11 (2014): 337-46.

Shabana, Ayman. ‘Islamic Law of Paternity between Classical Legal Texts and Modern Contexts: From Physiognomy to DNA Analysis’. Journal of Islamic Studies 25 (2014): 1-32.

Shabana, Ayman. ‘Foundations of the Consensus against Surrogacy Arrangements in Islamic Law’. Islamic Law and Society 22 (2015): 82-113.

Sharaf al-Din, Ahmad. Al-Ahkam al-Shar iyya li-l-A mal al-Tibbiyya (Cairo: n.p., 1987).

Stearns, Justin. ‘Enduring the Plague: Ethical Behavior in the Fatwas of Fourteenth Century Mufti and Theologian’. In Muslim Medical Ethics: from Theory to Practice, ed. Jonathan E. Brockopp and Thomas Eich (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2008.