Medicine and Shariah: A Dialogue in Islamic Bioethics, edited by Aasim I. Padela (original) (raw)

Journal of Islamic Ethics

If it is true, as Aasim Padela writes in the preface to the book-that "Islamic bioethics … remains very much in its infancy" (xiii)-then Medicine and Shariah: A Dialogue in Islamic Bioethics represents a major milestone. This edited volume reflects a certain maturation of thought and academic sophistication in the Islamic bioethics discourse. With eight different authors, Medicine and Shariah is written by a good balance of secular academics and traditionally trained scholars. The well-known Islamic studies expert Ebrahim Moosa graces the pages with a thought-provoking foreword and book chapter. Yet, it is the editor's voice, that of Aasim Padela, that binds the pages together, as he authored (or co-authored) at least half of the chapters. This gives the volume a sense of coherence as we come to know Padela's major goals: he wishes to bring conceptual clarity to Islamic bioethics by defining its scope as well as its agents. Medicine and Shariah seeks to expand the field to become truly multidisciplinary and holistic in nature. Overall, the authors should be congratulated for largely succeeding in this task although I wish here to offer some critical suggestions. A tension exists in the book, as it does in the field overall, over the proper role of Islamic law vis-à-vis Islamic (bio)ethics. Does the former subsume the latter? If so, the primary agents of Islamic bioethics should be traditionally trained jurists from amongst the ʿulamāʾ, with others taking on a secondary or tertiary role. Under this paradigm, clinicians would be used largely instrumentally by the jurists who issue the actual legal rulings (fatāwā). For the most part, Medicine and Shariah take a middle-ground approach, seeking neither to supplant or bypass the ʿulamāʾ nor, however, to cede all intellectual authority to them. On the one hand, the "book focuses on two groups of Islamic bioethics stakeholders, Muslim physicians and Islamic jurists"; on the other hand, "as a whole the book argues for moving beyond jurists and clinicians to incorporate other disciplinary experts (and thereby other fields of knowledge)" (xiii). This would ostensibly include secular-trained Muslim academics, social scientists, and clinical bioethicists, as well as the traditional fields of Islamic theology, practical and virtue ethics (adab and akhlāq), and-although it is a topic curiously missing from this volume-Sufism. Additionally, Moosa urges the need for "a serious dose of philosophical thinking," with Padela calling for the input of "political and moral philosophers" (ix, 232). Although he considers the role of Islamic jurists to be indispensable, Padela also sees "gaps in both fiqh academy verdicts and traditional fatāwā," which "render some of these outputs