Analysis of Human Relationship with His Body Organs from the Perspective of Islamic Jurisprudence

The topic of human relationship with his body organs has been one of the most significant jurisprudential and legal issues that the recent advances in medical science, biotechnology and Genetics have rearranged it on the top of the most challenging bioethical topics. According to the jurisprudential and legal literature, it can be found that three theories of human’s authority over his body, inherent ownership and trusteeship-based relationship have been the most common basis to determine the type of human relationship with his body organs. In this article first we attempt to analyze and critique the mentioned basis and in the second step the authors’ selected viewpoint will be explained.

The method is based on the description and analysis of library and internet data and resources. In order to achieve the purposes of this article, three main common approaches are discussed in the first stage. These approaches are: human’s authority over his body, inherent ownership and trusteeship-based relationship. Then the authors' chosen viewpoint is presented which is based on assumed ownership.

It seems that the approaches based on human’s authority over his body, inherent ownership and trusteeship-based relationship cannot handle new requirements efficiently along with the criticisms that can be made to them. In this regard, the following requirements may be mentioned: Substitute one person instead of another for decisions that lead to changes in the human genome, general health and the rights of future generations and the necessity of formulating new policies in the field of medical treatment and preventive measures. From the authors' point of view the topic of "assumed ownership" which differs from other approaches can help jurists and lawyers to communicate between modern authorities and legal and rational limitations of human ownership over its members. On the path to explaining this approach, we do not need to enter the discussion about knowing or not knowing the organs as human’s property.