Exercise 2: Islam and bioethics

Instruction for teacher

Before starting this exercise, consider that there may be Muslim students in the group. In such a situation, remember that there are different schools of interpretation of the Muslim law. Therefore there is no single official teaching on what is allowed and what is not allowed. As this is a sensitive and difficult issue, you may ask students to look at other religions for information on these problems. In this way, the focus will not be centred on the Muslim perspective and students will have a chance to see the multiplicity of attitudes to the same dilemma.

Duration: 50 min

The aim of the exercise: identification of the most relevant issues concerning Islamic bioethics, work on source texts

Methods: work with texts (critical analysis of the text), individual work, teamwork (problem method), discussion

Materials: set of quotes from the Qur’an, hadith and other sources, flipchart,

The teacher divides the class into several groups (depending on the number of students) and then distributes a set of quotes to each group. The students are asked to read excerpts from the Qur’an, hadith and other sources, and then to identify the main problematic issues related to Islamic bioethics (suicide, taking a life, euthanasia, animal testing, brain death, etc). Each group presents its interpretation of the passages received. The teacher writes the keywords on the board, thus creating a list of the most critical issues.

The cited quotations indicate answers to various ethical questions. On the one hand, the work with the text shows how difficult it is to create binding regulations on the basis of ambiguous religious texts (it is worth mentioning that such ambiguity is a common feature of the three monotheistic religions). On the other hand, the quotations contain references to situations with which communities must cope (euthanasia, animal testing, death, therapies). Therefore, students can see the continuity of issues that remain of interest to humanity throughout the ages. Students also have the opportunity to see how various ethical issues are regulated in the Quran.