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Presented at the 3rd National Seminar on Shariah Compliance Hospital 2019 held at Kuantan, Malaysia on December 2, 2019, by Professor Omar Hasan Kasule Sr. MB ChB (MUK), MPH (Harvard), DrPH (Harvard) Chairman of the Human and Medical Ethics Committee as well as the Institutional Review Board King Fahad Medical City Riyadh Saudi Arabia
ABSTRACT
The issue of Islamic chaplaincy raises several conceptual issues that need discussion from the perspective of shari'ah-compliant hospitals. Chaplaincy is a service that serves people in spiritually vulnerable situations with fear of death, illness, or stress such as the army, prisons, hospitals, and living-in educational institutions. The American and European practice was to assign chaplaincy to priests or other persons with a religious vocation. This practice would be repugnant to Islam which does not accept priesthood; Islam allows any Muslim with the requisite knowledge and skills to perform religious duties including. From this perspective, all hospital staff can perform chaplaincy duties according to knowledge, ability, and availability. However, some chaplaincy duties may require more time, deeper knowledge, and higher skills necessitating training and appointing staff as full or part-time chaplains in a shari'ah-compliant hospital.
The chaplain fulfills a necessary supportive role in the hospital by taking care of patients’ religious and spiritual needs primarily but also social and psychological needs. The chaplain is a religious guide/counselor (murshud diini), a psychological counselor, a problem solver of ethical and fiqhi dilemmas, and an advocate for patient rights and welfare in front of healthcare givers and hospital administrators.
Spiritual support involves encouraging and enabling patients to perform acts of ibadat, dua for the patient, talking to patients about Allah and the hereafter, giving patients hope in the mercy of Allah, and preparing terminal patients for eventual death, and being around and supportive at the last moments. The chaplain is also needed to support patients spiritually when they receive bad news.
Chaplaincy must be recognized as an essential service in the hospital. Special training programs should be set up at the national level to select and train and certify chaplains. Entry into chaplaincy can be from any social or medical background. Psychological, aptitude, and personality tests are essential to make sure the prospective candidate has the mental and emotional background to handle a stressful job with deep human interactions. The training should be offered at two levels: a short overview for all health caregivers and a longer training for certified chaplains.
The chaplaincy curriculum should include introductions to social sciences, Islamic sciences, medical sciences, and hospital administration. The essential social sciences for chaplaincy are psychology, sociology, and anthropology from the medical perspective. The necessary Islamic sciences are the basics of the ‘aqidah with emphasis on pre-determination (qadar), prophetic teachings on disease and its treatment, the role of supplication (dua and ruqya) in medical treatment, Qur’anic verses, and hadith dealing with disease and its treatment, basics of taharat and salat for the disabled patient, handling of the terminal patient, bereavement and preparation for burial. In medical sciences, the aspiring chaplain should be taught basic medical terminology, basic disease classification, major diagnostic and treatment modalities, and the procedures of emergency and intensive care units. The aspiring chaplain must understand the structure of hospital administration, the ward routines, and the specific functions of different health caregivers.
Chaplaincy will play a significant role in a shari'ah-compliant hospital because it is part of comprehensive holistic care for the patient that addresses spiritual and psychosocial needs.