Organ Donation in Islam

Mahdiyah Jaffer is research co-ordinator at Al-Mahdi Institute (AMI).Aasim I. Padela is professor of emergency medicine, bioethics and the medical humanities at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Gurch Randhawa is professor of diversity in public health and director of the UK Organ Donation & Transplant Research Centre at University of Bedfordshire.

• Introduction by Aasim I. Padela, Mahdiyah Jaffer and Gurch RandhawaPart I: Jurisprudential and Theological Discourses 1. Our Organs Belong to God: Sunni Islamic Legal Perspective to Property in the Body by Rafaqat Rashid2. Shi?i Juristic Perspectives on Bodily Ownership, Autonomy and the Prohibition of Self-Harm by Mahdiyah Jaffer3. Organ Donation in Islamic Juridical Ethics by Abdulaziz Sachedina4. Soul-Searching: Organ Donation, Death and the Social Construction of the Soul by Mansur Ali5. Islamic Normativity Regarding Brain Death: Implications for Organ Donation by Arif Abdul-HussainPart II: Ethical Perspectives and Lived Experiences 6. ‘You can Receive but not Give’: The Ethical Dilemma of Organ Donation by Liyakat Takim7. ‘Muslims do not Donate Organs’: A Qualitative Inquiry into Perspectives Towards Organ Transplantation Among Muslims in India by Aasia Qayium and Ankita Mukherjee8. Are ‘Brain-Dead’ Patients Really Cadavers? ‘Brain Death’ from the Viewpoint of Iranian Shi?i fiqh and C

This exquisitely edited, comprehensive volume feels like many books in one: a treatise on Islamic theology and the casuistry of organ donation, a lively work on commonly encountered impressions and misconceptions about the Islamic attitude toward transplants, and an exploration of the social and political dimensions of organ donation among Muslim communities. Each of the four parts includes a selection of texts that focus on the main issues at hand while maintaining a strict tonal coherence and analytical depth throughout. This collection will appeal to Islamic experts and practitioners who want to better understand their own tradition, including the diversity of opinions and nuances. For non-Muslim bioethicists and even for general readers, this volume is the most accessible, richest collection so far on the sometimes complex, often little-known Islamic teachings and traditions pertaining to organ donation and its connected problems. It includes questions about living donors, compensated donation, death determination, and especially social attitudes toward organ ablation. The volume closes with a carefully reasoned expert summary of the lessons this compilation offers. Advanced readers will likely prefer to navigate chapters in normal order. For a fruitful experience, though, beginners may start from this final chapter and proceed backward toward the first. Highly recommended. All readers.