Organ donation: ‘Redressing the reality’

Organ transplantation is an issue which is conspicuous by its absence in Muslim scripture. The reason for this is quite simple – the first successful organ transplant took place in 1954 in America whereas the Qur’an was revealed in seventh-century Arabia. Therefore, classical Islamic law manuals - be they Sunni, Shia, Hanafi, Maliki or any other schools of law and theology – are understandably silent on the issue. A lack of direct guidance from the Qur’an and sunna and classical Islamic law books has led Muslim scholars, individually as well as collectively, to debate the issue. The first discussion on the topic took place in 1925 by Shaykh Abdur Rahman al-Sa’di, a Saudi scholar (1)