The relationship between Religion and Medicine

Talking about Medicine and religion can seem at first to be talking about two unrelated issues. But such misconception would soon give way when we understand that religion came to serve man, and that the medicine is the science that aims at serving man too. Here we have to add that religion is not only a spiritual experiment that is detached from reality, or can be isolated away from man and life, as some would indicate when they describe religion as a spiritual state or when they describe religious scholars as spiritual leaders.

There is something very fundamental that we should understand: Religion came to make the life of man better.  life is not the absolutist concept that makes man swim in vacuum. It came to serve man, as a mind, heart and body, Religion did not deny the body which is a fact. That is why we talk about a spirit that interacts with the body, giving it its feelings and emotions, and inspiring value even towards its needs.

The Islamic Message:

It is evident that Islam is concerned with the body as part of his concern with life, especially that it possess a universal view about the nature of life; its beginning and what links this beginning to the end. Islam concentrates in many of its rulings on preserving the beginning of life and then on the movement of life from its beginning to the end…

Therefore, we reckon that the message of Islam is the same of that of medicine; which is to protect life. If Islam does not stop here and goes beyond this issue to deal with political or social issues, it stays with life and medicine, even when it calls for war, peace, or for living a normal life.

Between jurisprudence and science

In fact, medicine came to serve man, and not vice-versa. Similarly religion came to serve man, and man did not come to serve religion. Religion is not something we serve. It is something we live, while medicine is not an idol to glorify. It is something we make use of in our life.

There is another point that has to do with the need of Islamic rulings to medicine. Medicine determines the subject of these rulings. In issues of life or death, we need science to know how much a ruling is applicable on a certain subject.

Thus, medicine might serve as a reference for religion in related issues. This makes us feel a need for an organic relationship between jurisprudence in medical and scientific issues and the science of medicine. Jurists should not issue rulings in subjects they do not medically understand, while doctors should not rule in things they do not know what the Shariah says about.

Therefore, those who learn medicine and practice it, are doing so for man's sake; to keep him away from pain and from death whose time has not arrived yet. On the other hand, being religious means   being humanitarian. Religion is not cold and rigid. It is living with God, which means serving fellow human beings: "All creations are God's children, and Allah loves most those who serve best His children.”

In the light of this, we deal with, the issue of ethics. Ethics might be discussed from the point of view of philosophy and sociology…. Ethics also can be divided according to its fields. Hence we might have political, social and economic ethics… Here we are dealing with medical ethics. But we want to say first that ethics is but one entity that might diversify in details: It can be summarized in living your humanity in that of the other, his mind is yours, his heart and emotions are yours. Probably the best way to summarize the question of ethics is the saying of the Prophet(p.) “No one of you will believe until he loves for the other what he loves  for himself and hates for him what he hates for himself”.

Notice this association between belief and love of others, in such a way that your become the other.

Imam Ali (a.s.) says in his will: My son: Make yourself a balance between you and others, love for them what you love for yourself and hate what you hate for yourself. This altruism will turn love of one's self which is a kind of selfishness that drives man to develop himself into its opposite. To love yourself is to love the other in you. To think that you are not living alone, but with the other. There is in the entire no such equation as I not the other but always I and the other. The other is existing before you. He is existing in your life. Not to recognize the other is in-existential and does not conform with reality.

You have to recognize him for no human can cancel the other. He can downsize him but never cancel him. Nobody can cancel you if you do not cancel yourself.

Medicine is a message and not a profession

In the light of this, it is clear that we cannot separate ethics in one field form the ethics of other fields, for although the details are different but the principles are the same.

Therefore, the physician has to save the patient no matter how grave his illness may be. He has to employ all his knowledge and experience to help him and make every possible effort to save him. This is what epitomizes his responsibility in life.

As a doctor you do not have the right to think that you have a profession. You have to think that you are carrying a Message.

Your humanism lies in embracing that of your patient, for if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.

A doctor – human being, is responsible, being equipped with some of the means of protecting life, for life, through his responsibility of the humanism in the others, He is responsible also for the element of humanitarianism inside him, since he is responsible for himself.

Therefore, to be a doctor means in ethics, that you should live medicine as a message and not as a profession. And when you carry a message it should reflect itself in all your medical practices.

Medicine is similar to politics. Just as politics is a message, to facilitate the people's needs and run their affairs, medicine aims at the same thing, to serve the people and help them attaining their errands.

The patient's secrets:

 It is natural for a doctor to learn about the secrets of his patience and the circumstances that led to his illness, or the social and individual negative aspects that are associated with his sickness...

All this is a form of trust, and from the point the view of humanitarian ethics, which is also the religious ethics, are forms of trust that ought to be respected and hence kept secret. Nobody is allowed to spread the secret of any human being in any issue, unless he is talking about him in what is good as some of the Prophet's traditions state.