Organ Transplant
By Mufti Ebrahim Desai
| Q.) Please let me know if kidney transplantation is permissible in any
condition. If yes what can be those conditions... please reply in detail if the answer is
yes. [Omer Farooqi] |
A.) Many Islamic scholars and Jurists have written on the subject of organ
transplant. Over the decades, medicine has improved and advanced dramatically, taking
medical technology to extreme heights.
Today, through the vast medical advancement, almost any transplant of the human body
can be performed. Owing to the technological medical changes, prominent and renowned
jurists of the world have carefully analyzed the process of organ transplant and upon
investigation made the following observations:
1. When any person's limb or organ becomes unusable and that limb or organ is needed to
function in the future by a suitable replacement then the following conditions must be
considered:
Use of a non-living component.
Use the limb of those animals permissible to eat and slaughtered according to the
Islamic rites of slaughter.
If there is almost certain fear of loss of life or danger of losing the limb/organ and
the replacement is only found in Haram animals or in permissible animals (which can be
eaten) but not slaughtered according to Islamic rites, then use of such a component will
be permissible. However, if there is no imminent danger of loss of life then it will not
be permissible to use anything from the pig.
2. Similarly, a transplant of any nature whatsoever is permissible from one part to
another part of the body of the same person when necessary.
3. The sale of any part of the human body is Haram.
4. If any ill person reaches a stage that a specific organ becomes unusable (to such an
extent) that if a human organ is not replaced into the body then there is an immediate
danger of loss of life -- the human organ is the only suitable replacement and medical
experts are absolutely certain that besides the human organ, there is no other life-saving
substitute and the patients' life is in danger, and the human organ is easily available to
the patient, then in that dire need a human organ transplant (to save one's life) will be
permissible for the sick.
5. When a perfectly healthy person on the advice of an expert physician confirms that
the removal of one kidney will not harm nor cause ill-health whatsoever and considering
the deteriorating health of his sick immediate family member which may cause death and
there is no other alternate or substitute then this will be permissible with the condition
that the kidney be donated and not sold.
6. The Will (Wasiyyat) of a person that after his death, his organs be donated is
forbidden in Shar'iah.
Q & A