Organ Donation, the Greatest Sadqa-e-Jariya

If you could help save lives and make many bet­ter with­out any­thing but com­pas­sion from your side, would you seek the approval of a cler­ic before doing so?

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, for a con­sid­er­ably large num­ber of peo­ple in our soci­ety, the answer is yes.

In a recent blog post, I urged the read­ers to not let their kind­ness die with them and reg­is­ter as organ donors. In response, many asked if doing so was allowed in Islam and a few declared it was not. In a coun­try where peo­ple so vehe­ment­ly rely on opin­ions of reli­gious schol­ars, it would be naive to expect them to pre­fer ratio­nal­ism over faith all of a sud­den. To pro­mote a cul­ture of organ dona­tion in our coun­try, it is nec­es­sary to acknowl­edge and address the reli­gious taboos asso­ci­at­ed with the sub­ject.

Know­ing this, the Sheikh Zayed Islam­ic Cen­tre, Karachi Uni­ver­si­ty, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Sindh Insti­tute of Urol­o­gy and Trans­plan­ta­tion (SIUT), orga­nized a sem­i­nar on ‘Dona­tion and Trans­plan­ta­tion of Organs In the light of Quran and Sun­nah’.

Address­ing the sem­i­nar, a major­i­ty of schol­ars explained that not only is organ trans­plan­ta­tion per­mit­ted in Islam, it is, in fact, con­sid­ered “Sadqa-e-Jariya”.

You might ascribe to polit­i­cal or reli­gious beliefs, but your organs don’t. For Mus­lims who might shy away from the thought of a non-Mus­lim being saved from their posthu­mous char­i­ty; and for Mus­lims who might refuse to be saved upon dis­cov­er­ing the dif­fer­ences in reli­gious affil­i­a­tions of their donor and them­selves, Mufti Muneeb ur Rehman clar­i­fied that trans­plan­ta­tion of any organ from a Mus­lim to non-Mus­lim or from a non-Mus­lim to Mus­lim is allowed in Islam.

Pres­i­dent of Jami­at-i-Ule­ma Pak­istan-Noorani Dr Abul Khair Moham­mad Zubair iden­ti­fied organ dona­tion as the great­est char­i­ty to save human lives and summed up his stance by say­ing, “Sav­ing lives can nev­er be against Islam”.

I can only be sat­is­fied by the out­look of the event at a time when there are thou­sands of peo­ple who grave­ly await the gift of life from their com­pa­tri­ots. Hope­ful­ly the effort does­n’t stop here and more peo­ple who might have had reli­gious reser­va­tions hold­ing them back from reg­is­ter­ing as organ donors are encour­aged to rethink their posi­tion.

Our eth­i­cal behav­iour should be based on sym­pa­thy, edu­ca­tion and our social needs, not on dog­mas or pre­con­cep­tions.

In a coun­try where their influ­ence is so over­whelm­ing, such will­ing­ness by the cler­gy to revise and clar­i­fy their stances in the light of mod­ern sci­ence demon­strates signs of an ide­o­log­i­cal ref­or­ma­tion we as a soci­ety are in dire need of.

From con­tra­cep­tion being con­sid­ered the “act of Satan” to cler­ics back­ing fam­i­ly plan­ners, the sto­ry of how Bangladesh curbed their bur­geon­ing birthrate by involv­ing reli­gious lead­ers in vig­or­ous pop­u­la­tion con­trol pro­grams is remark­able.

If they can do it, why can’t we?

By edu­cat­ing and train­ing cler­ics to join our efforts to com­bat the ills of our soci­ety, we can unite our apartheid-torn land, con­tribute towards a tol­er­ant soci­ety safe for diver­si­ty and break preva­lent taboos by putting an end to per­sis­tent silence on issues that need to be tack­led.

Sem­i­nars of this sort are essen­tial for guid­ing pub­lic opin­ion and polit­i­cal actions; and the orga­niz­ers have my utmost respect.

How­ev­er, this is only a mile­stone and great chal­lenges lie ahead. Besides reli­gious con­cerns, there are socio­cul­tur­al bar­ri­ers restrain­ing us from sav­ing and improv­ing lives. The avail­abil­i­ty of organs can be a mat­ter of life and death (as it has been for many who’ve lost their lives know­ing they could be saved if only their com­pa­tri­ots dis­cerned the val­ue of human life) and there­fore deserves our devot­ed, not divid­ed, atten­tion.
Amid cul­tur­al chal­lenges, organ dona­tion thrives in many coun­tries owing to tire­less aware­ness efforts by their gov­ern­ment and media. By ardu­ous­ly fight­ing against ille­gal traf­fick­ing, launch­ing edu­ca­tion cam­paigns to cope with pub­lic dis­trust in the pro­ce­dure, pro­mot­ing enlight­ened fam­i­ly dis­cus­sions on the issue, and eulo­giz­ing self­less­ness by prop­a­gat­ing nar­ra­tives reveal­ing how impact­ful one’s will­ing­ness to gift life to oth­ers can be, we can even­tu­al­ly wit­ness a tremen­dous decline in the stig­ma of organ dona­tion.

Many might feel uncom­fort­able talk­ing about death, but it remains to be a sub­tle real­i­ty each of us shall have to encounter. If you decide to reg­is­ter as an organ donor con­sid­er­ing it “Sadqa-e-Jariya” or mere­ly an act of kind­ness, in the end, it will be you who will make the most of your deci­sion – for when the time comes, know­ing that the end of your life will be the begin­ning of a new one for some­body, will allow you to say good­bye with pride.

This arti­cle was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in Express Tri­bune.