The inviolability and value of the human body and the corpse in the Islamic legal tradition
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/bar.28948Keywords:
inviolability, starving person, corpse, Islamic law, fiqh, cannibalismAbstract
This article examines how the inviolability (hurma) of the human body is conceived of and negotiated within juristic discourses on the paradigmatic hypothetical case of the starving person from the fifth/eleventh through seventh/thirteenth centuries. The Islamic legal tradition documents lively juristic discussions and debates on hypothetical cases of necessity, many of which implicate foundational questions of value and the inviolability of the human body. At a basic level, necessity applies to a situation in which someone must ‘break’ the law or fail to fulfill a legal obligation, in order to escape the threat of serious harm to something of high value (usually, life, limb, or health). The jurists constructed multiple hypothetical cases of necessity that implicate the inviolability of the human body, including the cases of the starving person, excision of gangrenous tissue, and cesarian section, as well as numerous fact patterns of coercion. This article considers the challenging issues of inflicting serious bodily harm on others and on oneself in order to preserve life, including inflicting harm on the living and on the dead, as well as self-harm. It provides an account and analysis of both the substance and mechanics of fiqh argument, or how jurists reasoned through complex questions of value that also have substantial bases in conceptions of the human body, medicine, logic, and reasonableness through the language and method of the fiqh. This article argues that the evidence and methods of argumentation employed by the jurists reveal significant diversity and tensions in juristic method and understandings of value and subjectivity in the fiqh, as well as in the construction of the foundational concepts of inviolability (hurma) and (legal) protection ('isma). Furthermore, it shows that in the starving person paradigm, the jurists explored the boundary between (non-human) animality and humanity, and grappled with how to locate the (dead) human body within legal thought, and how to operationalize the higher degree of respect accorded to the human body than to non-human bodies. Finally, it examines the ways in which these discourses provide material for considering the functions of subjectivity, emotions, and moral aversion in the law.
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