209. Donating Organ

By  Asma Bint Shameem

Donating organs is allowed in Islam if certain conditions are met. 

The Islamic Fiqh Council issued a statement where these conditions were quoted. 

Some of these are:

1. It is permissible to transplant an organ from one place in a person’s body to another place in the same body, but attention must be paid to ensuring that the expected benefits outweigh any possible harm; that is subject to the condition that this is done to replace a lost organ or body part, or to restore its regular shape or function, or to correct a fault or remove a deformity that is causing the person psychological or physical harm. 

2. It is permissible to transplant an organ from the body of one person to another if it is an organ that renews itself automatically, such as blood and skin. But attention must be paid to the condition that the donor be fully qualified and fulfil the shar’i conditions. 

3. It is permissible to make use of organs that have been taken from the body of another person due to sickness, such as taking the cornea from the eye of a person whose eye has been removed due to sickness. 

4. It is haraam to transplant an organ on which life depends, such as transplanting the heart from a living person to another person. 

5. It is haraam to transplant an organ from a living person when its removal may cause an essential function to cease, even though his life does not depend on it, such as taking the corneas of both eyes. But if he will still have partial function after removing it, then the matter is subject to further discussion as we shall see below in section 8. 

6. It is permissible to transplant an organ from a dead person to a living person whose life or basic essential functions depend on that organ, subject to the condition that permission be given by the deceased before his death, or by his heirs after his death, or by the authorities in charge of the Muslims if the identity of the deceased is unknown or he has no heirs. 

7. It should be noted that the agreement on the permissibility of organ transplants explained above is subject to the condition that this is not done by selling the organs, because it is not permissible to subject human organs to sale under any circumstances. 

As for the beneficiary spending money in order to obtain the required organ where necessary or offering compensation or honouring the donor, this is subject to ijtihaad and further discussion. 

And there are others

And Allaah knows best