Islamic Bioethics: Current Issues And Challenges

Current Issues and Challenges

Alireza Bagheri, Khalid Alali

• Publisher: WSPC (EUROPE)
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781783267514
• Topic: Sciences biologiques
• Subtopic: Science générale

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Islamic Bioethics presents a wide variety of perspectives and debates on how Islamic societies deal with the ethical dilemmas raised by biomedicine and new technologies.

The book is a "constructive dialogue" between contributors selected from a multidisciplinary group of Muslim and non-Muslim scholars from different Islamic countries. The 11 chapters illuminate the diversity and complexity of the issues discussed in Islamic bioethics and pave the way to a better understanding of Islamic bioethics and dialogue in the global bioethics community. The chapters take both theoretical and practical approaches to the topic, and each covers an emerging issue in Islamic bioethics.

This book will be useful for academics and professional institutions in both Islamic and non-Islamic countries, and will be instrumental in providing researchers, scholars, students, policymakers and medical professionals with access to the latest issues and debates related to Islamic bioethics.

Contributors include: Tariq Ramadan, Abdallah Daar, Ali Albar, Mohsin Ebrahim, Baharouddin Azizan Alastair Campbel, Bagher Larijani, Carol Taylor, Gamal Serour, James Rusthoven, Ilhan Ilkilic, Ingrid Mattson, Hassan Chamsi-Pasha, Jonathan Crane, Hakan Ertin, Mehunisha Suleman.

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--> Contents:

• Islamic Ethics: Sources, Methodology and Application (T Ramadan)
• Islamic Bioethics: Infrastructure and Capacity Building (A Bagheri)
• What Islamic Bioethics Can Offer to Global Bioethics (A Bagheri et al.)
• Gender and Sexuality in Islamic Bioethics (I Mattson)
• Physician-Patient Relationship in Islamic Context (M Al Bar & H Chamsi-Pasha)
• Islamic Perspective on Brain Death and Organ Transplantation (M Ebrahim)
• The Stem Cell Debate in Islamic Bioethics (H Ertin & I Ilkilic)
• Environmental Ethics in Islam (A Baharuddin & M N Musa)
• Animal Rights in Islam (B Larijani et al.)
• Biomedical Research Ethics in the Islamic Context: Reflections on and Challenges for Islamic Bioethics (M Suleman)
• Challenges in Islamic Bioethics (K Alali et al.)

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--> Readership: Healthcare professionals, health policy makers, physicians and nurses, lawyers academics, researchers, graduate students and lay public. -->
Keywords:Islamic Bioethics;Bioethics;Biomedical Ethics;Medical Ethics;IslamReview: Key Features:

• Provides a platform for a better understanding of bioethical issues in Islamic context and how an ethical dilemma is dealt with and how decisions are made in Islamic bioethics from a multidisciplinary group of scholars
• Bioethical topics presented in this volume are the most critical issues in Islamic bioethics as well as global bioethics
• Each chapter presents an update of a bioethical topic and/or challenges in Islamic bioethics from an authoritative bioethics/religious scholar
• In an innovative approach this volume presents a constructive dialogue between prominent Muslim and Non-Muslim scholars on Islamic bioethics

CHAPTER ONE

Islamic Ethics: Sources, Methodology and Application

Tariq Ramadan

Abstract

When discussing “Islamic ethics” it is imperative to begin by defining and describing both the terminology and the sources of ethics (al-akhlāq). The structure of the ethical notions in the Islamic context needs to be understood from within as well as through the evolution of what is commonly called “the Islamic sciences.” This definition and identification is critical especially when our focus is on applied ethics. In Islam, ethics should be studied in relation to law and jurisprudence (fiqh), philosophy–theology (kalām, falsafah) as well as mysticism (tasawwuf). Drawing only on Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), for example, when addressing a complex bioethical issue, may direct the analysis away from important foundational ethical discussions and fail to include Islamic philosophical and spiritual, as well as cultural, considerations.

This chapter reviews the sources of Islamic ethics as well as the methodologies used in the development of the field. Concurrently, it also examines the relationship between ethics and jurisprudence in dealing with bioethical issues.

Introduction

The primary concern of ethics is to determine what is “good” and what is “bad.” From this modest starting point, specialists in the discipline have developed a multi-faceted approach to the process of distinguishing “right” from “wrong.” Systems have been established to define what can be considered as “licit” and “illicit,” and will be discussed below.

Terminology: The discussion of ethics is broad-based, and may well lead to confusion, even among specialists, who prioritize differently the order of importance of philosophical inquiry versus legal application. Add to this, the critical debate over the sources and the origins of ethics, and of the necessary distinction that must be drawn between ethics and morals. While some believe that the only distinction is a strictly linguistic one (“ethics” being to Greek what “morals” are to Latin), philosophers and thinkers have pointed to differences of both order and nature between the two notions. Opposing views on origins (God or man); sources (revelation or reason); function (control or orientation of knowledge); and ends or “higher objectives” (divine, humanistic, utilitarian, etc.) have always been sharply demarcated. These opposing views have left their imprint on the western intellectual tradition. Positions have remained adversarial, polarized, and often irreconcilable to this day. On the one hand, there are philosophical opinions expressed by philosophers such as Paul Ricoeur and Max Weber and reaching as far back as Emmanuel Kant, Baruch Spinoza, and René Descartes. On the other hand, there are the monotheistic religions and the Greek classical tradition rediscovered by the Renaissance.

The sharp delineation of opposing views is also one of the chief hall-marks of the Islamic tradition, which subsumes a multiplicity of positions, some of which are exclusivist and even exclusionist. To grasp the nature of contemporary controversies in the Muslim world, it is essential to return to the sources, to immerse ourselves in the history of Islamic civilization. Only in this way can one understand from within the notion of “Islamic ethics” and more specifically the depth and breadth of the debates that have marked the history of Islamic thought.

There are many trends within the Islamic tradition which consider the relationship between the scriptural sources and reason. The philosophers, following in the footsteps of the Hellenic tradition, were privileging reason and the Texts were simply confirming what independent human faculty had uncovered. Al-mu’tazila, known as the rationalists within philosophy–theology, shared the opinion while relying more on the very scriptures to prove their points. The Asharites took an opposing view and refused to allow for reasoning, arguing that only the independent power determines what is right or wrong. That is, only God, hence the Qur’an, can decide and determine the ethical behaviors or acts. Al-Matūrīdī tried to find a way in between by reconciling reason and scriptures. However, the debates were at times harsh and some scholars did not hesitate to consider some of their opponents as being outside of the Islamic faith.

The very notion of ethics must be held up to close scrutiny; no exact equivalent exists in the Arabic language. Islamic legal scholars, thinkers and mystics who have grappled with the subject have by no means always agreed (not unlike in the western tradition). The two Arabic terms that best embody the notion of ethics — akhlāq and adab — share an overlapping sense of “proper conduct,” of positive action and virtue. In the classical tradition, a “science of virtues” (’ilm al-akhlāq) quickly arose, within which legal scholars, philosophers and mystics turned their attention to matters of proper conduct, personal character, and to qualities such as self-mastery, justice and temperance, honesty, uprightness, and courage. Numerous treatises drawing on this particular definition were written in each of these fields. The notion of adab, which harkens back to the idea of letters and literature, quickly became associated with professional ethics and conduct. In the 11th century treatise entitled Medical Ethics or conduct of physicians (Adab al-

abīb), the physician Is

āq al-Ruhāwī explores the principles that should guide the behavior of physicians (As-Saāmarraā’ī and Ar-Rahāwī, 1992). Another term, akhlāqiyyāt, which shares the same root as akhlāq, was used with increasing frequency to define the ethics of a profession or a given field of knowledge, as a replacement for adab.

The use of multiple terminologies, which often tells much about the extent and nature of internal discussions, leads rapidly to fundamental debates over sources as well as the formulation and status of ethics from an Islamic perspective. How, at the core of Islam, are “good” and “bad,” “right” and “wrong,” to be determined, and by whom? Questions include: whether reference must be made to the scriptural sources (the Qur’an and the Prophetic traditions) as a matter of priority; what is the role of reason; what is the nature of the relationship between ethical principles and values (akhlāq) and legal norms (a

kām); what are the connections with other religious and philosophical systems and traditions. These questions have percolated through the widely diverse circles of Muslim thought down through history, complete with — once more — a multiplicity of often-contradictory responses whether among thinkers or scholars of different Islamic sciences (law, philosophy, Sufism).

Sources: Ethical references are numerous in the Qur’an. Taken as a whole, the Qur’anic revelation lays down a conception of the human being: of values and ultimate goals whose core essence [deepest foundations] are of a moral order. By recognizing God and his uniqueness (taw

īd), believers are called upon to choose their pathway in life by following the call to perform good deeds; to transform themselves through reform and purification; and to reject imprisonment by one’s ego by possessions and by dependencies of every kind. Numerous Qur’anic verses give voice to this reality that every human being must make a choice: “By the Soul, and the proportion and order given to it. And its enlightenment as to its wrong and its right. Truly, he succeeds that purifies it. And he fails that corrupts it” (111: 7–10). Therefore, it is that one finds within itself two impulses, one toward good and the other toward evil (for thus was it created); it must then, in good conscience and in faith, choose either good or evil. That which sets the “believer” apart is a function of “good deeds,” with revelation defining the faithful as “those who believe and work righteous deeds.” (29: 7). It is the choice of good, on the moral level, that sets the believers apart, that allows them to accede to God’s love, to paradise and to success (falā

) in this world and in the afterlife.

It is not surprising that the example to be followed by all Muslims is that of the Prophet of Islam, as set forth in the Qur’an: “We have indeed in the Apostle of God a beautiful pattern (of conduct) for any one whose hope is in God and the Final Day and who engages much in the praise of God” (33: 21). Precisely what sets the last of the Messengers, the Prophet of Islam, according to the Islamic tradition, is his moral stature, as manifested both before and during his mission. As the Qur’an reads; “And thou stands on an exalted standard of character” (68:4). The Qur’an is a message whose core and essence is the call to Mankind to recognize the existence of the Unique and to draw closer to Him by transforming oneself and one’s behavior, by choosing what is right; by doing good deeds and by placing oneself at the service of justice (‘adl). The visible expression and the social consequences of faith flow from following the example of the Prophet and “enjoining what is right (ma’rūf) and forbidding what is wrong (munkar).” When, seeking to learn more about the Prophet’s character and personality, Sa’īd ibn

ishām asked the Prophet’s wife, Aisha, who replied: “his character (his morality) was the Qur’an.”² She meant that his entire being, as well as his conduct, was the manifestation of the moral teachings of Islam in every aspect of his life. By his ethical and moral carriage, he personified the message of the Qur’an.

The profoundly moral content of the Qur’an and the eminently ethical nature of the Prophet’s exemplary life provide the central elements for understanding the Islamic message. Everything that is said about faith is connected with the reform and amelioration of the human being, specifically human behavior toward himself and toward nature, including animals and the planet. For the Qur’an, in emphasizing the intrinsic dignity of human beings, declares: “Now, indeed, we have conferred dignity on the children of Adam” (17: 70). Elsewhere, the quality of faith is described: “The most honored of you in the sight of God is (he who is) the most righteous.”³

The Prophet himself was the living embodiment of the meaning of piety (al-bir), equating it with ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Series Editor
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• Chapter One Islamic Ethics: Sources, Methodology and Application
• Chapter Two Islamic Bioethics: Infrastructure and Capacity Building
• Chapter Three What Islamic Bioethics Offers to Global Bioethics
• Chapter Four Gender and Sexuality in Islamic Bioethics
• Chapter Five The Physician-Patient Relationship in an Islamic Context
• Chapter Six Islamic Perspective on Brain Death and Organ Transplantation
• Chapter Seven An Ethical Account of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research in the Islamic World
• Chapter Eight Environmental Ethics in Islam
• Chapter Nine Animal Rights in Islam: The Use of Animals for Medical Research
• Chapter Ten Biomedical Research Ethics in the Islamic Context: Reflections on and Challenges for Islamic Bioethics
• Chapter Eleven Challenges in Islamic Bioethics
• Index
• About the Editors