Islamische Rechtsmeinungen zu medizinischen Eingriffen an den Grenzen des Lebens

‘Should medicine be allowed to do everything it can?’. This question is the focus of today's bioethics discussions and indicates that medical research and practice are engaged in a complex reciprocal relationship between natural science (i.e. what medicine can do), legal regulations (what medicine is allowed to do) and ethical norms (what medicine should or should not be allowed to do). Questions at the beginning and at the end of life especially often lead to deep ethical conflicts, which have not been settled to date: Neither unborn children nor the dying nor human corpses are subjects of a dialogical therapeutic relationship, but are objects of complex decision-making. Islamic legal scholars have also been expressing their views on the medical options involved for a considerable time, in some cases adopting very controversial positions. In this book, influential fatwas from this body of literature are presented and analysed.