All Eyes on Egypt: Islam and the Medical Use of Dead Bodies Amidst Cairo’s Political Unrest

Abstract

Using dead bodies for medical purposes has long been considered taboo in Egypt. Public health campaigns, physicians' pleas, and the urgings of religious scholars all failed to alter public opinion regarding the donation of dead bodies either for instructional material or for therapeutic treatments. Yet in 2011, amid revolutionary turmoil in Egypt, a campaign was launched for people to donate their eyes upon death; this time, people readily signed up to be donors. Focusing on mass eye trauma that occurred in Egypt amid the political uprisings of 2011, I raise questions about when and why Islam can explain people's attitudes and behaviors, particularly toward death and medicine. The case of mass eye trauma in Egypt and citizens' reformulations of questions once jealously controlled by state-aligned doctors, politicians, and religious scholars unsettles the boundaries between 'religion' and 'secularism' in medical practice.

An Interpretive Approach to Religious Ambiguities around Medical Innovations: The Spanish Catholic Church on Organ Donation and Transplantation (1954–2014)

“…Outside of Christianity, reformist Islamic authorities in Egypt, for example, have also shown early and consistent support for organ transplantation (Hamdy 2012 , 2016 ). However, their approach has revolved mainly around dispelling religious objections to organ donation and transplantation, whereas the Spanish Catholic Church supplemented that strategy over time with a clear and active embrace of organ donation as an expression of Catholic values.…”

“…However, their approach has revolved mainly around dispelling religious objections to organ donation and transplantation, whereas the Spanish Catholic Church supplemented that strategy over time with a clear and active embrace of organ donation as an expression of Catholic values. In Egypt it would be activists and revolutionaries who, in 2011, would connect cadaveric cornea donation to notions of sacrifice and religious martyrdom in the context of the protests against Hosni Mubarak’s regime (Hamdy 2016 ).…”

“…In fact, in context where other religious groups have attempted to lend support to and promote organ transfer, part of their strategy has been to move towards some form of centralization of religious authority, or at least a consensus in bioethical matters. For example, since the nineteenth century, state-aligned reformist Islamic scholars in Egypt have tried to encourage the population to donate their corneas—and later, other organs—after death by dispelling religious concerns around organ transfer and providing them with a unitary set of guidelines (Hamdy 2012 , 2013 , 2016 ). Organizations like the Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences (IOMS), the British Islamic Medical Association (BIMA), and the Turkish religious organization Milli Görüs and the Contact Group for the Relations between Muslim Organizations and Government (CMO) in the Netherlands have also tried to reach some degree of consensus to support organ transfer (Ali and Maravia 2020 ; Ghaly 2012 ).…”

“…The link between sociopolitical contexts and religious interpretations of medical innovations, and specifically of organ transfer, has not been studied in detail. However, authors like Margaret Lock and Sherine Hamdy have found that in Japan and Egypt, respectively, religious opposition to organ transfer has to do with wider crises of authority and trust in institutions (Hamdy 2012 , 2013 , 2016 ; Lock 2002 ), which in the case of Egypt changed with the 2011 uprising and the symbolic connection between mass eye trauma, cornea donation, and religious martyrdom (Hamdy 2016 ). In his study “Islam and organ donation in the Netherlands”, Mohammed Ghaly found that it is not possible to understand Muslim organization’s interest in supporting organ donation without considering ongoing accusations against the Muslim population of not donating enough organs and taking advantage of the Dutch organ procurement system and, more widely, without considering the rise of islamophobia in the region (Ghaly 2012 ).…”

Creencias islámicas respecto a la muerte y análisis sobre su impacto en la donación humana

“…Llama la atención que las razones por las cuales no se recibiría un órgano distan del componente religioso y se acercan a cuestiones prácticas; mientras que al incurrir en donación, los matices cambian basándose en este contexto de creencias. Sherine Hamdy (17) describe un fenómeno interesante que tomó lugar en Egipto. Antes de 2011 se consideraba tabú donar partes del cuerpo cuando alguien fallecía, basándose en su santidad y el insulto que implica manipularlo cuando no hay vida él.…”