Azhar scholars say one womb per woman and no transplants

Yomna Kamel Middle East Times staff


ORGAN TRANSPLANT PROCEDURES ARE A POINT OF CONTENTION BETWEEN DOCTORS AND SCHOLARS


Egyptian women suffering from chronic womb ailments will lose the chance for a transplant operation to have children after a fatwa released last week denounced womb donation and transplantation.

The fatwa (religious ruling) came in response to a request from Egyptian doctors reluctant to adopt the medical technique of womb transplantation widely used in other parts of the world.

The Islamic Research Council, the major religious body authorized to issue fatwas, formed a committee to study the Islamic perspective concerning the issue. Citing a previous fatwa given by the same council, which bans the donation or transplantation of sexual organs, they gave the prohibitive ruling.

Sheikh Abdel Rahman Al Adawy, head of the council's Jurisprudence Research Committee, told the Middle East Times the opinion was given to fulfill the Islamic principle of maintaining the family lineage. If reproductive organs are transferred from one body to another, lineage would be difficult to trace.

"By giving the first fatwa against sexual organ donation, Muslim scholars wanted to avoid disrupting the Islamic conceptions of lineage," Sheikh Al Adawy said.

Sheikh Al Adawy explains that the womb has its own genealogical characteristics and it is not just a home for the infant as some people might think.

"As the infant takes its characteristics from the mother's womb, if it grows in a womb donated by a stranger, he/she will carry some of the stranger's genealogical characteristic. Then the question has to be raised as to who the child's mother is," Sheikh Al Adawy said.

The decision forbidding the transplant of sexual organs has its basis on other fatwas concerning organ donation. These rulings say that donating single organs like the heart, liver and pancreas are also not permissible."Since there is only one womb in a woman's body, we can use this earlier ruling to further justify why women cannot receive or donate wombs," Sheikh Al Adawy said.

Sheikh Al Adawy is personally against organ donation from a living person to another under any circumstances. He says that most situations he and his colleagues know about show that donor and recipient do not lead a normal life after the operation.

The fatwa for prohibiting the donation and transplantation of sexual organs is welcomed by Egyptian doctors like Dr. Shoreh Younes, a surgeon and internal medicine specialist. He says that donating organs involved in reproduction are haram (forbidden by religion) and the overwhelming majority of Egyptian doctors would agree with this point of view.

"For other kinds of organs, it is permissible under certain conditions. In case it comes from a dead person, it should be according to his will. If donation is from one living person to another, it is up to doctors to decide on this matter," Younes said. "From an Islamic viewpoint, donation is not permissible if it leads to any sort of total or partial harm to the donor's health."

Younes added that from his point of view, the buying and selling of organs is totally not allowed in Islam.

Despite these latest fatwas, other Azhar scholars and Muslims across the world encourage organ donation as long as it remains within the frame of donating what is permissible (not sexual or single organs) and donations are not made for the purpose of making money.

The Saudi daily Arab News reported that Muhammad Said Tantawi, the Sheikh of Al Azhar joined the ranks of those scholars who urge people to become organ donors.

Abdul Rahman Al Rashed, a senior columnist at the paper agreed with the Sheikh of Al Azhar regarding this issue.

"Certainly among Muslims, the case for organ donation has now been greatly strengthened," he wrote. "A large number of Muslim scholars not only approve of donating organs but also appeal to people to donate."

In fact, Rashed thinks that organ donation is one of the most venerable actions.

"The simple and obvious fact is that donating organs is surely one of the greatest acts of charity that one human can perform for another," he wrote. "Once its importance has been clearly understood by all, no one should ever again be reluctant to donate what has served him and what can continue to serve his brothers."