Medical Ethics in Contemporary Islamic Literature: A Study of Trends and Methodologies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31436/ijfus.v10i2.448Keywords:
Medical ethics, Bioethics, Islamic foundation (taʾṣīl), Sharīʻah authority, FiqhAbstract
This study examines the stance of contemporary Islamic literature toward the discipline of medical ethics and the extent of its consistency with sound Islamic foundation (taʾṣīl). The research problem arises because rapid medical advancement has generated novel issues demanding a normative response. The West established the modern field of medical ethics in accordance with its own philosophical premises; while, in parallel, Islamic intellectual trends diverged in their attempts to construct a comparable field upon Islamic premises—often through methodologies whose Sharīʻah soundness is open to question. Accordingly, the study sets out to describe, analyze, and critique these trends with respect to their position on the authority of the Sharīʻah and its role, and the methodologies by which the field is built. To this end it adopts the descriptive–analytical–critical method, surveying representative works of contemporary Islamic medical ethics’ literature and evaluating their foundational assumptions. The study finds that fiqh occupies the very center of what corresponds to this discipline within the map of the Islamic sciences, and that the surveyed trends share, in varying degrees, an imitation of the Western model—ranging from borrowing its name and organization to constructing a normativity parallel to the Sharīʻah’s methodologies. It concludes by rejecting the formation of a parallel normative field. Instead, it proposes a development from within the Sharīʻah itself, upon an authentic methodological basis that represents the Sharīʻah’s normativity in its completeness. It also directs scholarly effort toward activating the Sharīʻah and assimilating its internal theoretical frameworks rather than producing parallel philosophies.
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