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at the 9th International Seminar & Workshop of the Islamic
Hospital Consortium Malaysia held in Kuala Lumpur under the theme ‘Spiritual
Support in Health Care’ by Professor Omar Hasan Kasule MB ChB (MUK), MPH
(Harvard), DrPH (Harvard) Faculty of Medicine King Fahad Medical City Riyadh
Saudi Arabia. EM omarkasule@yahoo.com, WEB: www.omarkasule-tib.blogspot.com
ABSTRACT
Renaissance of Islamic medicine can be
dated to the start of the 15th century of hijra the seminal
event being the First International Conference of Islamic Medicine held in
Kuwait in 1981. This renaissance has gone through several experiences: revival
of the traditional Muslim medicine in the 1980s, medical and relief projects in
the 1990s, establishment of Islamic medical colleges and Islamic hospitals in
the 2000s. This last development has necessitated the need to develop an
Islamic vision of medicine and medical practice that is unique and is a
different and additional contribution to medicine beside the contemporary
western vision. The 2000s also witnessed a parallel development in Islamic law
emphasizing purposes of the Law, maqasid al shari’at. This motivated the
application of these purposes in medicine that started as teaching maqasid
at the faculty of medicine in the International Islamic University at Kuantan
starting in 1997. This was accompanied by development of principles of fiqh
in medical applications. Both maqasid and qawa’id soon evolved
into an Islamic vision of medicine that is gaining currency in many countries.
The 5 maqasid are the governing paradigms according to which actions
will be judges as moral or immoral. Each medical action must fulfill or not
violate the preservation of morality, hifdh al ddiin; life, hifdh al
nafs; progeny, hifdh al nasl; intellect, hifdh al ‘aql; and
resources, hifdh al maal. The maqasid are however very broad so use in
addition the principles of fiqh, qawa’id al fiqh, that are short legal axioms
that facilitate reasoning through complicated issues. The main principles are
5: intention, qasd; certainty, yaqiin; harm, dharar; hardship, mashaqqat; and
custom, ‘aadat. Many subprinciples can be developed from each of these. The
Majallat al ahkaam al adliyyat listed 99 main principles and 1851 sub principles
in the commercial area. The challenge is to develop a legal manual like the
majallat with as many or more principles relating to medicine. The paper will
analyze case studies using maqasid and qawa’id to illustrate their robustness
in analysis.