The sanctity of human life is a basic concept in Islam. All Muslims believe that Allah (THE GOD) is the Creator and the Owner of all life. He starts human life from conception and only He will end it through natural death. The moment of death is fixed only by our Creator. There are many verses in the final holy book Al Qur’an which emphasise these core Islamic beliefs, for example:
In the Name of GOD the Most Compassionate the Most Merciful. • “Do not kill yourselves, for verily Allah has been to you most merciful†(4: 29) • “…take not life which Allah has made sacred†(6:
151) • “…and (Allah) is the one who gave you life, then shall He ordain you to die, then shall He give you your life again, truly mankind is ungrateful†(22: 66)
According to these clear Holy Scriptures: Suicide, attempted suicide, assisted suicide and euthanasia are all prohibited in Islam. The lives of all are to be respected, whether they are an unborn child, a born child or a person who is old, sick or disabled. There is a clear saying of the final prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), which prohibits all methods of suicide, such as taking a poison, jumping from a mountain, or by using an iron instrument. Otherwise hell is the punishment. The European Council for Fatwa and Research has stated: “It is forbidden to end deliberately (by intention) or to hasten the death of any person.†Food and fluids, and life-saving treatment Whether a person is sick or healthy, it is their basic human right to have their need for food and fluids fulfilled. We Muslims strongly oppose any measure to withdraw food and fluid from any patient in order to hasten death, whether conscious or not, child or adult, disabled, sick with terminal illness or frail elderly. It is also prohibited to stop any life-saving treatment in order to hasten death. Any medicine or analgesic which could hasten death is never to be used to hasten death. So-called “living wills†are prohibited in Islam. Just one type of will is permitted, that is to deal with assets and the distribution of the inheritance. Our “living will†is to
live according to the will of the Creator. No believer has the right to decide to end his/her life at anytime or at any stage of an illness. We believe that we do not own our bodies, our bodies belong to the Creator, the Designer, the real Owner.
A cure for every disease Muslims believe that for every disease there is a cure, as stated by the Prophet. They also believe in accepting any hardship, suffering or illness and to be patient, as it takes all previous sins away (purification). However, one should try to avoid illness and one is allowed (rather ordered) to
use the best treatment or the most effective analgesic. Palliative care is recommended in Islam, and the best hospice for a Muslim is to die at home with family members around. Natural death (that is, according to God’s plan and not according to a doctor’s, a judge’s or the family’s plan or decision) is in the patient’s best interests and is the most dignified death for a Muslim believer. Legislation for euthanasia and assisted suicide Muslim believers strongly oppose: The Mental Capacity Act (which allows the withdrawal of food, fluid and reasonable medical treatment from a person who is not in the process of dying, in order to bring about their death). Any attempt to re-introduce Lord Joffe’s Assisted
Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill. If passed this bill would allow doctors to help patients to commit suicide.
• Any future attempt to legalise assisted suicide or euthanasia.
For any doctor to end the life of a patient, even if requested by the patient, would be a betrayal of the medical profession. It would mean the end of the bond of trust between doctor and patient. Life is a great gift from Allah and is to be cherished and protected at all times. Muslim doctors, nurses and patients should have this basic attitude to human life: full respect and full protection of any human life. All Muslim believers are PRO-LIFE.
Supporters of euthanasia argue: when the human machine has outlived its productive span its
maintenance is an unacceptable burden on the productive stratum of society, and it should be disposed
of, and rather abruptly than allowing it to deteriorate gradually. This logic is completely alien to Islam. Values take priority over prices. The care for the weak, old and helpless is a value in itself for which people are willing to sacrifice time, effort and money, and this starts, naturally with one’s own parents “Your Lord decreed that you worship none but Him, and that you be kind to your parents. Whether one or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of contempt but address them in terms of honour. And lower to them the wing of humility out of compassion, and say: my Lord, bestow on them Your mercy even as they cherished me in childhood†(Qur’an 17:25- 25). Because such caring is a virtue ordained and rewarded by God in this world and in the hereafter, the believers don’t take it as a debit but as an investment. When individual means cannot cover the needed care, it becomes, according to Islam, the collective responsibility of society, and financial priorities are reshuffled so that values take priority over pleasures, and people derive more pleasure from heeding values than from pursuing other pleasantries.
The Shari’a (Islamic Law) listed and specified the indications for taking life (i.e. the exceptions to the general rule of sanctity of human life), and they do not include mercy killing or make allowance for it. Human life per se is a value to be respected unconditionally, irrespective of other circumstances. Justification of taking life to escape suffering is not acceptable in Islam. Prophet Mohammad taught: “There was a man in older times who had an infliction that taxed his patience, so he took a knife, cut his wrist and bled to death. Upon this God said: My subject hastened his end, I deny him paradise.†During one of the military campaigns one of the Muslims was killed and the companions of the prophet kept praising his gallantry and efficiency in fighting, but, to their surprise, the Prophet commented,
“His lot is hell.†Upon inquiry, the companions found out that the man had been seriously injured so he
supported the handle of his sword on the ground and plunged his chest onto its tip, committing suicide. The Islamic Code of Medical Ethics endorsed by the First International Conference on Islamic Medicine (Islamic Organization of Medical Sciences, Kuwait, 1981, p.65) includes: “Mercy killing, like suicide, finds no support except in the atheistic way of thinking that believes that our life on this earth is followed by void. The claim of killing for painful hopeless illness is also refuted, for there is no human pain that cannot be largely conquered by medication or by suitable neurosurgery…â€.
There is still another dimension to the question of pain and suffering. Patience and endurance are highly
regarded and highly rewarded values in Islam. “Those who patiently preserve will truly receive a reward without measure†(Qur’an 39:10). “And bear in patience whatever (ill) maybe fall you: this, behold, is something to set one’s heart upon†(Qur’an 31:17). Prophet Mohammad taught “When the
believer is afflicted with pain, even that of a prick of a thorn or more, God forgives his sins, and his wrongdoings are discarded as a tree sheds off its leaves.â€
“If anyone slay a person – unless it be for murder or spreading mischief in the land – it would be as if he slew the whole people. And if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people†(Qur’an 5:32).
“Take not life which Allah made sacred otherwise than in the course of justice†(Qur’an 6:151 and 7:33).
The Shari’a went into great detail in defining the conditions were taking life is permissible whether in war or in peace (as an item of the criminal law), with rigorous prerequisites and precautions to minimize that event.
In the Name of GOD the Most Compassionate the Most Merciful. • “Do not kill yourselves, for verily Allah has been to you most merciful†(4: 29) • “…take not life which Allah has made sacred†(6:
151) • “…and (Allah) is the one who gave you life, then shall He ordain you to die, then shall He give you your life again, truly mankind is ungrateful†(22: 66)
According to these clear Holy Scriptures: Suicide, attempted suicide, assisted suicide and euthanasia are all prohibited in Islam. The lives of all are to be respected, whether they are an unborn child, a born child or a person who is old, sick or disabled. There is a clear saying of the final prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), which prohibits all methods of suicide, such as taking a poison, jumping from a mountain, or by using an iron instrument. Otherwise hell is the punishment. The European Council for Fatwa and Research has stated: “It is forbidden to end deliberately (by intention) or to hasten the death of any person.†Food and fluids, and life-saving treatment Whether a person is sick or healthy, it is their basic human right to have their need for food and fluids fulfilled. We Muslims strongly oppose any measure to withdraw food and fluid from any patient in order to hasten death, whether conscious or not, child or adult, disabled, sick with terminal illness or frail elderly. It is also prohibited to stop any life-saving treatment in order to hasten death. Any medicine or analgesic which could hasten death is never to be used to hasten death. So-called “living wills†are prohibited in Islam. Just one type of will is permitted, that is to deal with assets and the distribution of the inheritance. Our “living will†is to
live according to the will of the Creator. No believer has the right to decide to end his/her life at anytime or at any stage of an illness. We believe that we do not own our bodies, our bodies belong to the Creator, the Designer, the real Owner.
A cure for every disease Muslims believe that for every disease there is a cure, as stated by the Prophet. They also believe in accepting any hardship, suffering or illness and to be patient, as it takes all previous sins away (purification). However, one should try to avoid illness and one is allowed (rather ordered) to
use the best treatment or the most effective analgesic. Palliative care is recommended in Islam, and the best hospice for a Muslim is to die at home with family members around. Natural death (that is, according to God’s plan and not according to a doctor’s, a judge’s or the family’s plan or decision) is in the patient’s best interests and is the most dignified death for a Muslim believer. Legislation for euthanasia and assisted suicide Muslim believers strongly oppose: The Mental Capacity Act (which allows the withdrawal of food, fluid and reasonable medical treatment from a person who is not in the process of dying, in order to bring about their death). Any attempt to re-introduce Lord Joffe’s Assisted
Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill. If passed this bill would allow doctors to help patients to commit suicide.
• Any future attempt to legalise assisted suicide or euthanasia.
For any doctor to end the life of a patient, even if requested by the patient, would be a betrayal of the medical profession. It would mean the end of the bond of trust between doctor and patient. Life is a great gift from Allah and is to be cherished and protected at all times. Muslim doctors, nurses and patients should have this basic attitude to human life: full respect and full protection of any human life. All Muslim believers are PRO-LIFE.
Supporters of euthanasia argue: when the human machine has outlived its productive span its
maintenance is an unacceptable burden on the productive stratum of society, and it should be disposed
of, and rather abruptly than allowing it to deteriorate gradually. This logic is completely alien to Islam. Values take priority over prices. The care for the weak, old and helpless is a value in itself for which people are willing to sacrifice time, effort and money, and this starts, naturally with one’s own parents “Your Lord decreed that you worship none but Him, and that you be kind to your parents. Whether one or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of contempt but address them in terms of honour. And lower to them the wing of humility out of compassion, and say: my Lord, bestow on them Your mercy even as they cherished me in childhood†(Qur’an 17:25- 25). Because such caring is a virtue ordained and rewarded by God in this world and in the hereafter, the believers don’t take it as a debit but as an investment. When individual means cannot cover the needed care, it becomes, according to Islam, the collective responsibility of society, and financial priorities are reshuffled so that values take priority over pleasures, and people derive more pleasure from heeding values than from pursuing other pleasantries.
The Shari’a (Islamic Law) listed and specified the indications for taking life (i.e. the exceptions to the general rule of sanctity of human life), and they do not include mercy killing or make allowance for it. Human life per se is a value to be respected unconditionally, irrespective of other circumstances. Justification of taking life to escape suffering is not acceptable in Islam. Prophet Mohammad taught: “There was a man in older times who had an infliction that taxed his patience, so he took a knife, cut his wrist and bled to death. Upon this God said: My subject hastened his end, I deny him paradise.†During one of the military campaigns one of the Muslims was killed and the companions of the prophet kept praising his gallantry and efficiency in fighting, but, to their surprise, the Prophet commented,
“His lot is hell.†Upon inquiry, the companions found out that the man had been seriously injured so he
supported the handle of his sword on the ground and plunged his chest onto its tip, committing suicide. The Islamic Code of Medical Ethics endorsed by the First International Conference on Islamic Medicine (Islamic Organization of Medical Sciences, Kuwait, 1981, p.65) includes: “Mercy killing, like suicide, finds no support except in the atheistic way of thinking that believes that our life on this earth is followed by void. The claim of killing for painful hopeless illness is also refuted, for there is no human pain that cannot be largely conquered by medication or by suitable neurosurgery…â€.
There is still another dimension to the question of pain and suffering. Patience and endurance are highly
regarded and highly rewarded values in Islam. “Those who patiently preserve will truly receive a reward without measure†(Qur’an 39:10). “And bear in patience whatever (ill) maybe fall you: this, behold, is something to set one’s heart upon†(Qur’an 31:17). Prophet Mohammad taught “When the
believer is afflicted with pain, even that of a prick of a thorn or more, God forgives his sins, and his wrongdoings are discarded as a tree sheds off its leaves.â€
“If anyone slay a person – unless it be for murder or spreading mischief in the land – it would be as if he slew the whole people. And if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people†(Qur’an 5:32).
“Take not life which Allah made sacred otherwise than in the course of justice†(Qur’an 6:151 and 7:33).
The Shari’a went into great detail in defining the conditions were taking life is permissible whether in war or in peace (as an item of the criminal law), with rigorous prerequisites and precautions to minimize that event.
