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

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Abstract

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 (Sharīʿah), 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.

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Notes

  1. For more information about the conference as well as video recordings of the lectures, see https://pmr.uchicago.edu/studies/content/where-religion-bioethics-and-policy-meet-interdisciplinary-conference (accessed March 12, 2013). .

  2. Sunni Islam has two prominent schools of extant scholastic theology (kalām): the Māturīdī and the Ashʿarī. Often referenced in discussion of kalām is the Muʿtalizite school which more closely relates to Shiite Islam. Please see Sherman Jackson [7, chs. 1–4] for a concise overview.

  3. The extant Sunni schools of Islamic law are four and are named after their promulgators: Mālikī, Ḥanafī, Shāfiʿī, and Ḥanbalī. Please refer to any of a number of Islamic legal manuals for further details.

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Acknowledgments

This special collection as well as the conference Where Religion, Bioethics, and Policy Meet: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Islamic Bioethics and End-of-Life Care was supported by the following University of Michigan programs, centers, and institutes: the Center for Ethics and Public Life, the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, the International Institute, the Islamic Studies Program, the Office of the Vice President for Research, the Program in Society and Medicine, and the Division of General Internal Medicine in the Department of Medicine. Additional support and funding was provided by the Greenwall Foundation, Darul Qasim Institute, and the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. Special acknowledgements go to Drs. Rod Hayward, Dan Sulmasy, and Farr Curlin for encouragement and advice and for helping me to traverse all the barriers and hoops on the path towards this issue. We acknowledge the timely reviews and critical comments of the cadre of peer-reviewers who helped to enhance the quality of the papers. My deepest gratitude to Katie Gunter for being an exceptional research assistant and project coordinator. Lastly, my thanks to Brigid Adviento and Daniel Kim for their varied assistance with this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Initiative on Islam and Medicine, Program on Medicine and Religion, The University of Chicago, 5841 S. Maryland Ave., MC 5068, Chicago, IL, USA

    Aasim I. Padela

  2. Section of Emergency Medicine, Department of Medicine, The University of Chicago, 5841 S. Maryland Ave., MC 5068, Chicago, IL, USA

    Aasim I. Padela

  3. Maclean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, The University of Chicago, 5841 S. Maryland Ave., MC 5068, Chicago, IL, USA

    Aasim I. Padela

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Padela, A.I. Islamic bioethics: between sacred law, lived experiences, and state authority. Theor Med Bioeth 34, 65–80 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-013-9249-1

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