The Sharīʿah affords considerable concern for human emotions, with its rulings seeking to remove the deliberate and accidental types of harm that may be inflicted on individuals or society. The principle of medical confidentiality protects patients’ dignity and avoids potential harm if otherwise practised. Texts from the Quran and Sunnah substantiate that unjustified disclosure of secrets is prohibited and whoever breaches confidentiality is to be punished. This paper explores the origins of Islamic ethical framework vis-à-vis dealing with privacy, particularly confidential information acquired by health professionals. For that, this paper attempts to explore various āyāt (Quranic verses) and aḥādīth (Prophetic traditions) related to privacy, and thus to analogically deduct various aspects of confidentiality in the context of medical ethics. As a result, it aims to discourse on key principles of medical confidentiality from an Islamic juristic perspective, discussing its types and conditions.

With a history dating back to the era of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ), Muslims in Kerala, the second largest community in the state, mark their centuries-evolved social and religious imprints in the south-western tip of India. Among the organisational platforms, Samasta (founded on 1926) led by traditional Sunnī Shāfiʿī scholars claims the largest number of followers and is deemed as a religious authority by the masses for setting their beliefs up and finding fatwas for their religious queries. In light of the manuscripts of fatwas, publications and interviews, this study scrutinises the genesis, craft, methods and legal bases behind fatwas of Samasta. Besides, it conducts a case study of three fatwas on marriage to cross-check the peculiarities specified in the craft of fatwa and analyse the matters surrounding the issuance of a fatwa in Kerala. This study concludes that the influence of ‘past’ is evident in the ‘present’ legal interpretation of Samasta scholars.                                        Keywords: Samasta, fatwa, marriage, Shāfʿī, SFC, Legal basis, iftā’, Kerala. Abstrak Berteraskan sejarah Zaman Nabi Muhammad (ﷺ), masyarakat Islam di Kerala yang merupakan koumuniti kedua terbesar di negeri ini mencorakkan evolusi sosial dan amalan agama di bahagian Tenggara India. Antara organisasi yang ada di Kerala, Samasta [yang diasaskan 1926] yang dipimpin oleh ilmuwan mazhab Shafiee Sunni mempunyai pengikut yang paling ramai. Mereka juga dianggap mempunyai kuasa dalam menentukan fatwa dalam hal ehwal agama. Ini jelas terlihat dari keterangan penulisan, pendokumentasi fatwa, penerbitan dan temubual yang telah dijalankan. Kajian ini menghalusi sumber rujukan, kaedah dan metodologi,  penulisan  fatwa serta rujukan perundangan fatwa yang dihasilkan oleh Samasta dan juga merupakan intipati kajian ini. Kajian kes terhadap tiga fatwa perkahwinan ini adalah untuk melihat persamaan, perbezaan dan keunikan dalam fatwa perkahwinan di Kerala dan menganalisa isu berkaitan fatwa di Kerala. Kajian ini juga menujukkan pengaruh “lampau” adalah satu bukti jelas dalam menterjemahkan perundangan “semasa” oleh ilmuwan Samasta. Kata Kunci: Samasta, fatwa, perkahwinan, Shafie, SFC, asas perundangan, Kerala.

Although medical confidentiality is widely recognized as an essential principle in the therapeutic relationship, its systematic and coherent practice has been an ethically challenging duty upon healthcare providers due to various concerns of clinical, moral, religious, social, ethical and legal natures. Medical confidentiality can be breached to protect the patient and/or others if maintaining confidentiality causes serious harm. Healthcare professionals may encounter complicated situations whereby the divulgence of a patient’s confidential information may pose a threat to one party whereas the concealment of such information may cause harm to another. After deliberating on the Islamic concept of harm ( ḍarar ), this paper focuses on the dual duty and conflicts of interests faced by healthcare professionals in the practice of medical confidentiality. Referring to serious infectious diseases with a special mention of AIDS, this study also provides discourse on how healthcare professionals deal with difficult scenarios of conflicts of interests and ethical dilemmas.

This paper aims at analysing the concept of integrated education and its implementation by Sayyed Ismail Shihabuddin Pookkoya Thangal of Panoor (d. 2010) in Kerala, India. The scholar ardently advocated the importance of integrated education. He established educational institutions and spearheaded them till the end of his life. He believed that integrated education is instrumental in fulfilling the duties of a Mu’min (true believer) in this world, i.e., Khilāfah (vicegerency), ʿubūdiyah (servitude) and amānah (trust). Furthermore, he believed that Islam is misunderstood and misrepresented in the modern world for a variety of causes, which could only be addressed via good da’wah activities filled with al-ikmah (wisdom). These works can only be done after Muslims have a thorough understanding of both Islamic and human sciences. This paper uses textual analysis of Sayyed Ismail’s relevant literature, followed by a discussion of its social implications. This paper found that Sayyed Ismail could be regarded among the first in Kerala who put forth the idea of education that integrates the Islamic sciences (Naqli knowledge) and the rational sciences (Aqli knowledge) with an aim to produce Muslims who can efficiently deal with the needs and challenges of the modern world.

Non-medical or Social egg freezing (oocyte cryopreservation) is currently a controversial topic in Islam, with contradictory fatwas being issued in different Muslim countries. While Islamic authorities in Egypt permit the procedure, fatwas issued in Malaysia have banned single Muslim women from freezing their unfertilized eggs (vitrified oocytes) to be used later in marriage. The underlying principles of the Malaysian fatwas are that (i) sperm and egg cells produced before marriage, should not be used during marriage to conceive a child; (ii) extraction of mature egg cells from single women being unacceptable; and (iii) fertility preservation in anticipation of late marriage is a conjecture that has not yet occurred. Ovarian tissue freezing can potentially be a more Shariah-compliant alternative to social egg freezing, because once the frozen ovarian cortical tissue sections have been re-transplanted back into the woman, mature egg cells can readily be produced, collected, and fertilized by the husband's sperm only during the period of marriage contract (′akd al-nikāḥ). Unlike accidental mix-ups with frozen eggs, muddling of lineage (nasab) would be automatically avoided in ovarian tissue freezing due to immunological rejection. However, upon critical analysis based on Qawā'id Fiqhiyyah (Islamic Legal Maxims), Maqāṣid-al-Shariah (Higher Objectives of Islamic Law), and Maslaḥah-Mafsadah (benefits versus harmful effects on society), elective ovarian tissue freezing by healthy single women for social reasons would likely be a highly contentious and controversial issue within Muslim communities that may conflict with conservative social-religious norms. This thus needs further debate among Islamic jurists in dialogue with medical doctors and biomedical scientists.