End-of-Life Care in the Islamic Moral Tradition | Dr. Mohammed Ghaly: Centre for Islamic Knowledge:Oct 23, 2026

 YouTube Video:

https://youtu.be/zGwOMGKLzw4?si=LJRbziQqhuxdA0po

Modern biomedical technologies have profoundly transformed end-of-life care, enabling interventions that can sustain bodily functions, alleviate suffering, and prolong the dying process. These developments raise difficult moral questions: When does treatment preserve life, and when does it merely prolong dying? How should the relief of suffering, the limits of medicine, and the spiritual significance of death inform decisions about care? In this CIK Talk, Dr. Mohammed Ghaly draws on his edited volume, End-of-Life Care, Dying and Death in the Islamic Moral Tradition (Brill, 2022), to examine these questions through interdisciplinary perspectives rooted in Islamic scholarship. He focuses on two central ethical dilemmas: withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatments, and forgoing artificial nutrition and hydration. Presenting differing scholarly positions, he explores how religious scholars and medical professionals assess medical futility, potential benefits and harms, and the distinction between allowing death to take its course and actively ending a life. The presentation is followed by a discussion with Dr. Safaruk Chowdhury and audience questions addressing brain death, palliative care, the meaning of pain and suffering, and the psychological burdens faced by families making difficult decisions. Throughout, the conversation considers how Islamic moral reasoning can bring medical expertise into dialogue with compassion, religious responsibility, and an understanding of death as a transition to meeting Allah.

Mohammed Ghaly is Professor of Islam and Biomedical Ethics at the Research Centre for Islamic Legislation & Ethics (CILE), Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU). Besides his many refereed publications, Ghaly is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Islamic Ethics (Brill).

CIK Talk: Dr. Mohammed Ghaly:End-of-Life Care, Dying and Death in the Islamic Moral Tradition:Center for Islamic Knowledge.

https://www.cikedu.org/end-of-life-care-in-the-islamic-moral-tradition.html

Amazon:End-of-Life Care, Dying and Death in the Islamic Moral Tradition: أخلاق العناية في الإسلام: الرعاية الصحية عند نهاية العمر والاحتضار والموت (Studies in Islamic Ethics, 4) (Arabic Edition):Dr. Mohammed Ghaly

https://www.amazon.com/Dying-Islamic-Tradition-Studies-Ethics/dp/9004459405?ref_=ast_author_mpb

Modern biomedical technologies managed to revolutionise the End-of-Life Care (EoLC) in many aspects. The dying process can now be “engineered” by managing the accompanying physical symptoms or by “prolonging/hastening” death itself. Such interventions questioned and problematised long-established understandings of key moral concepts, such as good life, quality of life, pain, suffering, good death, appropriate death, dying well, etc. This volume examines how multifaceted EoLC moral questions can be addressed from interdisciplinary perspectives within the Islamic tradition.
Contributors
Amir Abbas Alizamani, Beate Anam, Hamed Arezaei, Asma Asadi, Pieter Coppens, Hans Daiber, Khalid Elzamzamy, Mohammed Ghaly, Hadil Lababidi, Shahaboddin Mahdavi, Aasim Padela, Rafaqat Rashid and Ayman Shabana.

Article PDF: End-of-Life Care in the Islamic Moral Tradition | Dr. Mohammed Ghaly: Manara Qatar Research Repository

https://manara.qnl.qa/articles/chapter/Introduction_i_End-of-Life_Care_in_the_Islamic_Moral_Tradition_i_/29554004/1