Islamic Biomedical Ethics Principles and Application by Abdulaziz Sachedina (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 280 pages.)

Abstract

Immediately distinctive of Sachedina’s approach to biomedical ethics is his
conception of the Shari`ah as an integrated legal-ethical tradition: The
Qur’an provides jurists with moral underpinnings of religious duty, and the
grounding texts are to be taken as an ethical standard of conduct. Legal rulings
are to be extracted accordingly. In short, the Islamic juridical tradition
(usul al-fiqh) presupposes ethics.
Sachedina argues for an ethical foundation – a strong epistemological
claim– and concerns himself with conceptual bases ofmoral reasoning rather
than with juridically derived judgment per se. He elucidates deontologicalteleological
principles that are “cross-culturally communicable” yet appreciative
of “situational exigencies.” In contrast to the juridical objective of
issuing legal opinions (fatwas), bioethical pluralism motivates Sachedina’s
preference for recommended moral conduct (tawsiyah). He therefore moves
away from the tendency of some scholars to conceive of bioethics merely as
“applied Islamic jurisprudence.”
The author’s epistemic and hermeneutic commitment commends his
work, given the two facts that he identifies: (1) informed public debate on
critical issues of biomedical ethics within Islam is lacking, relative to the
degree of democratic governance, and (2) the epistemological and ontological
bases of ethical inquiry remain underdeveloped in the Muslim seminarian
curriculum. Consequently, there is a critical need to demonstrate to
religious scholars that Islamic ethics have much in common with secular
bioethics and thus that an opportunity for dialogue exists ...