Materia Medica Malaysiana

Govt officer presents working paper on post-mortem in M'sia: "The approach towards carrying out post-mortem on dead bodies must be changed to fulfil Islamic religious needs so it can be practised by the Muslim nations.
According to Japar Maidin, an officer at the Brunei Darussalam's State Mufti's Department, the need to slice open dead bodies is permitted in Islam only within the context of disease research or when investigating the cause of death.
Japar said that during earlier times, such treatment on dead bodies was adjudged to be haram (forbidden) in Islam, because corpses had to be treated with respect.
'Cutting open dead bodies was not a strange thing in Islam. In the 17th century, post-mortems conducted on dead bodies were considered normal, whether for the purpose of research or for investigating the cause of death towards finding the truth,' said Japar while delivering a working paper entitled 'Bedah Siasat Mayat: Satu Tinjauan Menurut Perspektif Syarak' at the Fiqh National Seminar in Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia recently.
The seminar was organised by the Syariah Department, Islamic Education Faculty, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Kolej Islam Darul Ehsan.
Japar added that in Islam, sick people must receive medication or services towards improving their health, and that it is also a must for able Muslims to study towards becoming doctors or nurses so they can treat patients.
'A specialist doctor needs to acquire knowledge towards performing post-mortem on dead bodies for the purpose of education and medical knowledge,' said Japar.
'Slicing open a dead body for such purposes is permissible in Islam as it is considered as an emergency approach towards finding medical solutions to cure sick patients and towards improving the health status of people who are still alive.

"The question is that we must find humane ways to cut open dead bodies so ethics towards such post-mortem can be produced based upon the need to perform the operation in order to find the truth."

"There are many verses of Al-Quran where an accused person is entitled to a fair trial. The question is in how such a person can receive a fair trial in the case of non-availability of witnesses or whether the victim had succumbed to his or her injury.

"This is where post-mortem on a dead body is allowable to determine the cause of death or how the victim died," he said.