Transhumanism as a Challenge for Islamic Law

Abstract

The Islamic legal tradition states that God and his Prophet Muhammad teach true knowledge and practice through revelation. The discipline that engages with the revelatory sources and the derivation of norms and rules from them and extending them to related and new issues is Islamic law. In this discipline, religious scholars reflect on the legitimacy of the believers’ actions and categorize them accordingly. Societal and technological advancements are influencing this norm derivation process. For instance, medical technologies enable to cure diseases through e.g. medication and organ transplantation. As believers want to live up to certain principles of their religion, these developments require reflection from a (religious-)ethical point of view in order to determine under which circumstances to follow these developments is justified. Transhumanist enhancement, for instance, pose a challenge for this religious reflection, since it challenges the way of human existence and life as we experience(d) it in the history of humanity. After presenting the main principles and ethical bases of Islamic law, the article will discuss the Islamic legal concept of responsibility, physical integrity (ḥurma) and body with regard to transhumanistic challenges. The discussion will show that the bodily experience and existence of humans is one of the major aspects of the systematic of Islamic law. The idea of transcending the human body challenges the core systematic of Islamic law, including rituals like prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage. On the other hand, Islamic law has a structure that allows flexible and dynamic solutions that do not result automatically in a positive or negative evaluation of transhumanistic enhancement and allows interdisciplinary evaluation to which I will refer in three fictitious cases of transhumanistic enhancement. This will allow us to see that Islamic law is dependent on philosophical, theological, ethical, sociological, medical, and biological reflections on transhumanistic concepts that allows a plurality of approaches to transhumanism.