Organ donation and transplant

Saving life is a Quranic value: "whoever revives a soul, it is as if he revived all people" (sura al-Ma'ida 32). The resolutions of the contemporary Sunni academies exist and are named here; the contrary views too.

The resolution of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (OIC)

• Resolution no. 26 (2/4) (4th session, Jeddah, 1988) on organ grafts and transplantation: the graft is accepted as a means of treatment under strict conditions;
• the prohibition of sale: no price for the organ; the academy also forbids removing from a living donor a vital organ (the heart) without which he cannot survive;
• the living donation: accepted under conditions: a non-vital organ (kidney, marrow, part of the liver), foreseeable harm that remains reasonable, free and adult consent;
• resolution no. 59 (3/5) (5th session, 1988): prohibition of resorting to abortion in order to harvest foetal tissue intended for grafts.

Removal after death

• Decision no. 99 of Hay'at Kibar al-Ulama (Saudi Arabia, 6/11/1402): the transfer of an organ from a dead person to a patient is accepted; brain death is retained with the attestation of specialist physicians;
• the consent of the living: resolution 26 (2/4) requires the testament of the deceased or the authorisation of his heirs, without sale; consent registries (donor cards) fall within this framework;
• the dignity of the body: mutilation without necessity is forbidden: "better for one of you to have his head broken with a stone than to mutilate the dead" (Abu Dawud 3207); the necessity of saving a life is the necessity accepted by the academies;
• the contrary view: Ibn Baz and Ibn Uthaymin forbade removal from the dead, out of reverence for the deceased; this view is published in their fatwa collections: it shows the question is not closed by consensus.

Related prohibitions

• Sale, trafficking and transplant tourism: forbidden; reimbursement of costs (travel, loss of income): accepted; remuneration of the donor: no;
• removal without consent and without therapeutic purpose: unlawful;
• family pressure: no one is forced to donate: free consent is the first condition.

Practical note

The Muslim decides in his lifetime: registering or not in the national registry is a documented lawful choice; informing one's family avoids hesitations in emergencies. Whoever chooses not to donate is not at fault: donation is a generosity, not an obligation.