firstly, i would like to express my gratitude to iMuslim and others for helping me to understand more about organ donation from islamic point of view..
i am a medical student and now i had already do the dissection to the cadaver for the hand..i still have to dissect the leg and need to complete the task before this saturday.. at my place, we only had non-muslim as the cadavers, i do not know that in other country, they use muslim body as cadaver.. can we actually do that as a muslim? use another muslim’s body? is there any hadith related to that? there’s still a lot of things that i do not know, i really appreciate if any of you would like to help explain it to me… syukran…wassalam..

Thing is, if you or a loved one were in the position of accepting an organ donation or dying, which would you choose? If you deny it, it’s like choosing death. If you accept it, it would be somewhat hypocritical and selfish since you’re taking from the pool but not contributing to it. Some parents even have to make this decision for their child.

http://www.islamqa.com/index.php?ref=107690&ln=eng&txt=organ%20donation

Also in response to:

“2) Is it true that cadavers that are used in med schools are also supplied from the very same pool of people who ‘donate their organs’ to science? If this is the case then one really needs to ask himself/herself: do you want a group of inexperienced med students gawking and groping your dead body, sawing bits and pieces off for there mid-term homework? ”

For your body to be used in the gross labs of medical schools you have to specifically donate your body to science which is different from being an organ donor. If someone wants to donate their body to science (i.e. having medical students dissecting it), they have quite an extensive amount of paperwork to fill out (versus just having it labeled on their drivers licence). Actually, the person wanting to donate their body to science has to personally pay for their body to be transported to the medical school at which it will be dissected. (This is the case for the state of Florida. Every state has its own rules). The people who donate their bodies to science are generally very committed as its quite a hassle to donate your body for medical education.

I have to admit after having gone thru Gross Anatomy last semester, I don’t think I could donate my body to science (yes, sawing off a leg was quite disturbing). I think there’s definitely less than 1,000 people who do such a thing here in Florida every year.

However, it should be noted that there is a huge difference between donating your body to science (and having medical students study it) versus being someone who is an organ donor (and it’s not very hard to become one, that’s for sure).

Does anyone know what Shaykh-ul-Islamqa says about this matter.?

Wa Allahu Alim.

Methinks the thread has got a little sidetracked. There is obviously a big difference between donating one’s organs for transplantation, and donating one’s body for medical research. My entry was about the former… and i don’t have a clue about what the scholars say about the latter!

Irum, I also respect your personal opinion, though I hope you understand that my entry wasn’t about expressing my own opinion on organ donation, but rather trying to investigate the position of some of the ulema; i’m not sure if there is a complete consensus on the issue.

However, if i were to give a personal opinion from the perspective of the body being an amanah from Allah, i would add that one’s wealth is also amanah from Allah. After death, we have no claim to it anymore, and it should be distributed to the heirs as Allah has commanded, because wealth was never ours to own, but rather ours to manage for a short time.

However, Allah has allowed the believer some control over his wealth, even after death, whereby up to one third of the estate can be given away to a non-heir of their choosing, via the will. They don’t have to – it’s a voluntary act of sadaqah, and in fact, sometimes it’s best not to so that the true heirs receive a greater share.

The heir of the body is the grave. However, if we choose, we can donate a part of this wealth (and what is the best form of “wealth” other than good health itself?) to non-heirs, in the form of organ donation. You don’t have to, just as you don’t have to bequeath your estate to anyone other than your heirs – it’s a voluntary act of sadaqah.

That is my personal opinion. Wa Allahu ‘alam.

Islam doesn’t seem to forbid organ donation – though obviously it is a matter of ijtihad, as it is a modern day advancement in Medicine, not directly covered by the Qur’an & Sunnah. However it seems that there are some conditions placed on who can receive the organs, which i would like clarified, especially the point about not being allowed to donate to enemies of Islam/Muslims. Something slightly hard to define when you’re living as a minority in a non-Muslim land, whose soldiers happened to be stationed in Muslim-majority countries…

May Allah guide us.

Did get us all thinking of our own mortality though.

In response to:

“2) Is it true that cadavers that are used in med schools are also supplied from the very same pool of people who ‘donate their organs’ to science? If this is the case then one really needs to ask himself/herself: do you want a group of inexperienced med students gawking and groping your dead body, sawing bits and pieces off for there mid-term homework? ”

Gross Anatomy Labs and the dissection of cadavers is crucial to medical education. Moreover, medical students hold the bodies that we dissect and study with great respect. At the end of each first year anatomy class my school (along with many others) holds a ceremony in respect of those bodies we dissected all year. Many family members of the cadavers (of those who volunteered that their bodies be used for education) attend the ceremony. So to address your question, yes, many people in fact, are proud of the fact that their bodies helped in the education of future physicians.

Google it and you can get a preview of it. There’s something in there about also using corpses for reenacting the crucifixion… :S

La howla wa la quwatta illah billah