Islamic Normative Principles Underlying Fatwas on Assisted Reproductive Technologies: Al‐Azhar Fatwa on Artificial Insemination1
Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: A ssisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) have changed our understanding of procreation in drastic and fundamental ways.Most importantly, by transforming reproduction from being a natural in vivo function into a technical in vitro process, ARTs have introduced solutions to many infertility problems and increased the degree of control over the results of that process.They have equally raised numerous ethical, legal, and social questions that demand serious reflection and require the revision of a wide range of family-related concepts, laws, and doctrines.Within the Muslim context, Islamic law has always played an important role in the development of ethical norms, especially ones that inform practical questions facing individuals in their lived realities.Fatwas have served as the main mechanism through which qualified jurists address ethical-legal questions by articulating a sharīʿah position that reflects, in their opinion, divine will concerning related issues.By capturing and accommodating emerging societal needs, fatwas have been vital not only in the historical development of Islamic law but also in the ongoing reformulation of Islamic legal rules.Fatwas are generally considered the most important resource for religious-legal guidance, particularly for new and novel questions including ones in the area of biomedicine.One of the important fatwas that deal with assisted reproductive technologies was issued in 1980 by the former rector of al-Azhar Sheikh Jād al-Ḥaqq ʿAlī Jād al-Ḥaqq. 2 The fatwa is one of the ear-2 See al-Fatāwā al-Islāmiyyah min Dār al-Iftāʾ al-Miṣriyyah, 20 vols.(Cairo: al-Majlis al-Aʿlā lil-Shuʾūn al-Islāmiyyah, 1993), 9: 3213-3228; al-Fatāwā al-Islāmiyyah min Dār al-Iftāʾ al-Miṣriyyah, 39 vols.(Cairo: Dār al-Iftāʾ al-Miṣriyyah, 2012), 15: 56-71 (reference to this fatwa as well as other fatwas by Dār al-Iftāʾ will be made to the second edition by Dār al-Iftāʾ al-Miṣriyyah).See also Jād al-Ḥaqq ʿAlī Jād al-Ḥaqq, Bayān lil-Nās (Cairo: Dār al-Fārūq lil-Istithmārāt al-Thaqāfiyyah, 2014), 627-639. 1 An earlier draft of this paper was presented at a symposium entitled "Challenges of Developing a Fatwa-Making Methodology for Medical Issues," which was organized by the Istanbul Foundation for Research and Education (ISAR) on December 21-22, 2019.I am grateful to the organizers for inviting me to participate in this symposium and for their gracious hospitality.Research for this project was supported by a Faculty Research Grant from Georgetown University in Qatar.I alone bear responsibility for the content of this paper.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri butio n-NonCo mmercial- NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. The MusliM World•
Source: The Muslim World
DOI: 10.1111/muwo.12406
Author: Ayman Shabana
Institution: Georgetown University in Qatar
Language: English
Subfield: Religious studies
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,500
OpenAlex ID: W4205803554