Organ donation (1)

In the next series of blogs, we will focus on an issue that was raised by one of the readers of this blog, as well as an issue that is very troublesome to many within the Muslim community – that of organ donation.

In recent times, many have attempted to encourage the Shii community in particular to give organs, but for a host of reasons, such initiatives have not been able to take off. One of these reasons, has been fiqh and/or the Islamic law.

In this blog, I would like to set up the issue by determining the key points of concern when it comes to donating an organ:

1. After death:
a. Is it allowed to operate on a dead body for the purpose of extracting organs?
b. Are there conditions associated with this?
c. Does it depend on the person receiving the organ?
d. Would these require a will?
e. Does the family have to consent?
(To keep things simple, I am currently ignoring the difficulties about determining when is death i.e. brain death or heart stopping…etc.)

2. Whilst living:
a. Does it depend on the type of organ – is this different to blood?
b. Does it depend on the person receiving the organ?
c. Can you charge for this?

In the following blogs, I will be using the following main sources:
• Al-fiqh wa al-masa`il al-tibbiyya by Ayatullah Muhammad Asi al-Muhsini – this seems to be one of the few works that is very thorough on not the law, but the reasoning behind the law
• Websites of prominent ‘ulema, where they are able to provide colour on their reasoning/rationale behind the law
• Some of the views of scholars in the field of Islamic bio-ethics

At the end of this series of blogs, I will look at the rulings of prominent ‘ulema, and hopefully it will be possible for you to understand why they have come to the conclusion they have come to – and see inside the mind of these scholars!

Following this, I might (if there is a desire from the readers), provide some of my personal thoughts on this issue, in particular with regards to the bio-medical ethical framework that some regard as necessary in this regard. However, in all of these blogs, I have normally not done this, so will only do so if people believe it is useful!