Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine

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It is universally acknowledged that death is a complex concept and different factors such as complicated philosophical ideas, contradictory descriptive approaches, and diversity in interpretations add to this complexity. Although a thorough understanding of the notion of death is important for everyone, this concept is of crucial importance to health care providers as they face enormous ethical challenges in the course of their careers. A few instances are controversial issues such as brain death, euthanasia and end-of-life care, where it seems essential to define a set of robust criteria for death. On the other hand, it can be argued that death is not a scientific concept and only different branches of medicine can provide a framework to clarify the subject of death. Therefore, it could be argued that theological approaches may shed some light on this concept. In this article, we aim to extract ontologic components of death mentioned in the Holy Quran, and will move on to propose a set of 12 criteria for death. This may help provide a clear understanding of the concept from the point of view of the Holy Quran, although more research is warranted to further illuminate this complex subject.

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Abortion has remained a subject of intense controversy in medical ethics, particularly in the case of malformed fetuses. Review of the existing literature on the issue indicates that there are two main challenges in this regard: firstly, the question as to whether a malformed fetus has the right to live, and secondly, the fate of the soul (vegetative and animal) after induced abortion.This descriptive research presents different viewpoints in order to investigate the aforementioned questions in Mulla Sadra’s philosophy with a focus on the “right to live”. The results of the study demonstrate that according to Mulla Sadra’s theory, all fetuses possess potential human souls even if they are extremely malformed or disfigured. He considers the fetus a vegetable with the potential to convert into a human. Based on this ideology, which encompasses both creation and resurrection, the malformed fetus has the right to live. The assumption is founded upon Mulla Sadra’s Theory of Substantial Motion, which implies that abortion may influence the evolution of the soul in the limbo period (intermediate state) after abortion and might even affect its resurrection. It can be concluded that in the Iranian society, which has an Islamic background, theological views should be considered in decisions about abortion. It should be mentioned, however, that philosophical approaches alone cannot be relied on for decision-making regarding the abortion of a malformed fetus. Furthermore, interdisciplinary contributions are indispensable to a thorough analysis of this controversial issue so that the ethical challenges surrounding abortion in such cases can be overcome.

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Despite all recent advancements in medical sciences and the related technologies, the concept of death still remains obscure. It can be asserted that as death includes both physical and spiritual dimensions, medicine alone is not capable of fully illuminating its different features. Therefore, inter-disciplinary collaboration between different branches of science such as Quranic studies, humanities, and philosophy seems necessary in order to shed some light on this hitherto undiscovered subject. Through description of what the soul experiences before and during death, such collaborations may even enrich the knowledge and broaden the minds of physicians who are capable of the analysis of physical changes caused by death. This insight can promote the ethical decision-making process as well as the provision of end-of-life care and spiritual support in different stages of death. The current research, as a library literature review, endeavors to provide a descriptive view of death from a medical perspective, and then, a Quranic depiction of its different stages through an analysis of verses and quotations from the holy Quran and Islamic scriptures whose primary focus is the process of dying. The final discussion section presents some similarities and differences observed between viewpoints and raises questions which can be considered as being of great practical importance in terms of provision of necessary end-of-life spiritual support. We hope that further research in this field can better clarify the issues raised in this article so that practical measures aiming at the provision of Quran-based spiritual end-of-life care are designed and implemented.