Islamic Center of Southern California

The Arguments of Islamic Law Rulings on Recent Medical Issues

Topic Fourty

Determining the Status of Medical Sciences and Life-Related Disciplines in Islamic Law

Definition

Although Islamic Law encourages the pursuit of disciplines that bring benefit to the Islamic Nation, once in a while voices are raised to claim that Islam does not recognize cosmological sciences to be ones that entitle their specialists to receive any credit, credit for learning being earned only when one pursues disciplines of Islamic studies. Such voices ignore that the strong pillars and firm foundations on which the Islamic civilization was built were firm belief and the useful sciences in all areas, such as medicine, pharmacy, astronomy, marine sciences, engineering, architecture, and other sciences. Therefore, reviving the issue is necessary to serve the interests of future generations.

The Legal Position Chosen by the IOMS and Its Argument

In its fourteenth seminar, held in 2001, the IOMS emphasized the point that credit in Islam goes also to all branches of science and learning that benefit mankind and urged the promotion of this notion by all possible means. The recommendations of the seminar say the following:

1. The seminar emphasizes that the science and learning which the sources of Islamic Law, particularly the Divine Book and the Prophet's Traditions (sunna) commends, together with men of learning, are not limited to disciplines of Islamic studies, but include all disciplines, whether Islamic, cosmological, or natural. The seminar also emphasizes that all disciplines of learning are noble, but the degree of their nobility varies with the difference of their subjects, with the disciplines that deal with God and His attributes being the noblest, because anything related to Him is the most noble of all noble things.

2. The seminar affirms that the learning of cosmological and natural sciences by Muslims is a community obligation, in the sense that it is waived as a general obligation only when some Muslims undertake it, learning it sufficiently to satisfy the need of Muslims for scientific knowledge, and that all Muslims sin when these sciences are not learned at all or not learned sufficiently. This rule also covers the funding of such learning.

3. The seminar affirms that the finding of cosmological and natural science should be employed in arriving at the Islamic Law position regarding emerging issues. The seminar also stresses the importance of strengthening the ties between scholars of Islamic Law on the one hand and scientists and cosmologists on the other. This is to be done by an increase of the meetings, seminars, symposia, and conferences that result into increased mutual understanding and allow the arrival at considered opinions based on a strong foundation of Islamic Law and natural laws. Such opinions should by guided by flexibility in investigation and decision, thus following the approach of the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, who, whenever he had to choose between two things, chose the less demanding, unless it was sinful.

4. The seminar holds that monotheism calls for unified knowledge and one truth and denies any discrepancy between the knowledge related to this world and that related to the Hereafter. For this reason, the seminar recommends teaching an introduction to Islamic studies in colleges of physical and natural science and an introduction to physical and natural science in colleges of Islamic studies. The syllabi of these two introductions should be designed in a way that guarantees easy understanding and optimal benefit.

5. The seminar calls for the coupling of the pursuit of any discipline or specialization with a consolidation of religious and ethical values in a manner that guarantees an orientation of science towards what is useful to mankind.

6. The seminar urges for provision of the necessary means to keep Muslim scientists in their home countries and for the proper environment in Islamic countries to be created to mobilize emigrant scientists and benefit from their expertise and energies to develop the scientific situation in Islamic countries and remove any obstacles that hinder such development.

7. The seminar recommends the establishment of channels of communication with the scientists of Muslim communities in the West, in order to maintain strong ties between them and their nation and benefit from their experience.

8. The seminar recommends putting into action the mechanisms of applying a strategy for the development of science and technology in Muslim countries which were suggested by the Islamic Organization of Education, Science, and Culture and approved by the ninth Islamic summit conference.

9. The seminar recommends efforts to prepare a data base for all scientists in Islamic countries and Muslim scientists in all other parts of the world, highlighting their qualifications, fields of specialization, and scientific and research work.

10. The seminar calls for linking specialized scientific studies with the references to them or the statements that motivate them in the Glorious Quran, and linking all studies that deal with Islamic Law with the facts of natural and cosmological science that support them.

11. The seminar recommends teaching the history of science in Islamic countries and the contribution of Islamic culture scientists, as well as the study of the approach followed by Muslim scientists in their research in the fields of secular science and of studies related to the Hereafter. This approach should be an inspiration in scientific research and should be adapted to meet the conditions of time and location.

12. The seminar urges the Islamic Organization of Medical Sciences (IOMS) to pay attention to the expected ethical revolution and to draft a document of research ethics from an Islamic perspective to contribute to the correction of mistaken notions that are spread throughout the world and to the transmission of Islamic ethics through the controls of scientific activity laid down by the IOMS.

13. The seminar recommends efforts to be made to clarify some basic Islamic concepts, such as the consequences of man being a deputy on earth, the role and status of reason as defined by Islamic Law, the inference of the Creator's existence from what He has created, the meaning of His placing what heavens and the earth contain in the service of Man in accordance with God's laws and purposes, and the role of all these things in urging Muslim scientists to conduct research in the fields of science to answer many of the questions which the Glorious Quran instructs Muslims to find answers for.

14. The seminar regards the Islamic scientific heritage an integral component of the Islamic Nation's memory and believes that its revival is needed in order to connect contemporary sciences with their roots, amend the history of science, and give justice to the role of Islam in the annals of world civilization. It is for that reason that the seminar calls for introducing the history of science into the curricula of Islamic universities, so that students may be acquainted with the scientific progress in the Islamic civilization. Likewise, the seminar recommends that the Islamic scientific heritage which is still in the form of manuscripts be brought out and the necessary measures be taken to edit and study it.

15. The seminar urges Islamic countries to use education curricula, the media, and other forms of education to implant in their citizens, particularly the younger generations, the desire, urged by Islam, to pursue all kinds of useful learning and to engage in the duty of discovering the laws set by God for his creatures, which is known today as scientific research.

16. The seminar recommends to Islamic countries to pay great attention to the issues of human development as the basic gateway to development and progress, and to take steps towards organizing a group of people capable of effecting the desired scientific change and setting the foundations for excellence in research, particularly in the sciences that have precedence today, such as microelectronics, information, communications, genetic engineering, and space sciences. Islamic Center of Southern California