Human Dignity in the Islamic Bioethical Discourse on HIV/AIDS

Debates on HIV/AIDS were not foreign to the Muslim world due to the fact that Muslim physicians and social workers were part of the global response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The debates surrounding this disease revolve around its main cause and mode of transmission, which touch very sensitive social and ethical dimensions.Available literature on Islam and HIV/AIDS shows that two main approaches dominate the contemporary discourse on this topic, named in this thesis as the Moralist Approach and the Liberationist Approach. Proponents of the first approach argue that HIV/AIDS is a result of deviant sexual behavior and that the pandemic is a sign of divine retribution. On the other hand, advocates of the second approach question the efficacy of addressing this pandemic exclusively as an issue of moral failure. Solutions, they argue, should focus on more critical and deeper issues such as poverty, violence and stigma, which have severely affected the lives of the HIV/AIDS carriers. In light of these discussions, this thesis aims to give a critical analysis of the underpinnings and methods of reasoning used in the contemporary Islamic bioethical discourse on HIV/AIDS. The key questions in this thesis read as follows: How is the concept of “Human Dignity” approached in contemporary Islamic bioethical discourse? How is this concept approached within the context of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV)? Who are the main contributors to these deliberations and how do they come to their conclusion? What are the implications of these deliberations for the rights of PLHIV?