Medicine & Shariah: Chapter 6 Muslim Perspectives on the American Healthcare System: The Discursive Framing of lslamic Bioethical Discourse (original) (raw)

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

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

Islamic bioethics: between sacred law, lived experiences, and state authority

Theor Med Bioeth, 2013

There is burgeoning interest in the field of "Islamic" bioethics within public and professional circles, and both healthcare practitioners and academic scholars deploy their respective expertise in attempts to cohere a discipline of inquiry that addresses the needs of contemporary bioethics stakeholders while using resources from within the Islamic ethico-legal tradition. This manuscript serves as an introduction to the present thematic issue dedicated to Islamic bioethics. Using the collection of papers as a guide the paper outlines several critical questions that a comprehensive and cohesive Islamic bioethical theory must address: (i) What are the relationships between Islamic law (Sharī'ah), moral theology (uṣūl al-Fiqh), and Islamic bioethics? (ii) What is the relationship between an Islamic bioethics and the lived experiences of Muslims? and (iii) What is the relationship between Islamic bioethics and the state? This manuscript, and the papers in this special collection, provides insight into how Islamic bioethicists and Muslim communities are addressing some of these questions, and aims to spur further dialogue around these overaching questions as Islamic bioethics coalesces into a true field of scholarly and practical inquiry

Islamic Bioethics in the Twenty-First Century

Islamic bioethics is in good health, this article argues. During the twentieth century, academic researchers had to deal with a number of difficulties including the scarcity of available Islamic sources. However, the twenty-first century witnessed significant breakthroughs in the field of Islamic bioethics. A growing number of normative works authored by Muslim religious scholars and studies conducted by academic researchers have been published. This nascent field also proved to be appealing for research-funding institutions in the Muslim world and also in the West, such as the Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). On the other hand, the article argues that contemporary Islamic bioethics is in need of addressing news issues and adopting new approaches for the sake of maintaining and improving this good health in the future.

Religious and cultural legitimacy of bioethics: lessons from Islamic bioethics

Islamic religious norms are important for Islamic bioethical deliberations. In Muslim societies religious and cultural norms are sometimes confused but only the former are considered inviolable. I argue that respect for Islamic religious norms is essential for the legitimacy of bioethical standards in the Muslim context. I attribute the legitimating power of these norms, in addition to their purely religious and spiritual underpinnings, to their moral, legal, and communal dimensions. Although diversity within the Islamic ethical tradition defies any reductionist or essentialist reconstruction, legitimacy is secured mainly by approximation of Islamic ethical ideals believed to be inherent in the scriptural texts, rather than by the adoption of particular dogmatic or creedal views. With these characteristics, Islamic (bio) ethics may provide useful insights for comparative ethics and global bioethics.

Bioethics in Islamic Thought

This article gives an overview of Islamic ethical thought and its relationship to bioethical issues. It argues that Islamic bioethics can be viewed both as a cumulative tradition building on the Islamic ethical resources and as an ongoing discourse that captures the effort to understand and implement Islamic moral precepts pertaining to a wide range of issues including the beginning and end of human life, treatment of the human body, and proper attitudes towards the environment. After a brief introduction on the term 'bioethics' and its history, the article is divided into three main sections exploring the foundations of Islamic (bio)ethics, the evolution and development of medical ethics in the Islamic tradition, and the main challenges confronting contemporary Islamic bioethical discourses.