Islam Awareness Month at the Bechtel International Center concludes

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Islam Awareness Month, which included a series of discussions on Islam and Islamic perspectives on contemporary issues concluded yesterday with a lecture on Islam and bioethics at the Bechtel International Center.

The event, hosted by renowned emergency room surgeon and Islamic ethicist Faiz Khan, is aimed at fighting widespread misconception about Islam and increasing awareness of the noble religion and its practice, as well as encouraging discourse among Stanford students.

This year’s Islam Awareness Month, which addressed hundreds to issues on poverty, racism and the environment, sponsored five lectures.

“Human behavior is defined and inspired by ruh or the spirit or breath of God,” he said, stressing that a Muslim attempts to achieve taqwa or a heightened consciousness of the divine.

“The goal of any Muslim is to act as Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) and his companions would have acted,” he adds.

Moving to societal codes, the ethicist clarified the concept of Sharia.

“Sharia, from its etymological source, is the path,” Khan said. “Sharia is really an amalgamation of a code of conduct and is not solely limited to legalism. That is a Western construct that has been branded onto the term.”

“There is no one way of doing things,” he said. “True Muslim law is free of absolutism. There will be differences of opinion. It is the intention behind what you do that is important in terms of its spiritual value,” referring to a series of modern ethical issues. He also mentioned the Islamic perspectives in those situations, stressing that the protection of the person is central to Islamic ethics.

But the most controversial of all issues Khan discussed was abortion. Khan also discussed Islamic notions of life.

“Termination of pregnancy is only permissible for therapeutic reasons, like the mother’s health,” Khan said. “In situations that don’t involve the mother’s health, abortion is considered from extremely reprehensible and forbidden to inherently sinful. There is also a definite time when the fetus becomes a living being from an Islamic perspective. This differs from 40 days to 80 days to 120 days, depending on interpretation.”

Khan’s lecture received great admiration from his audience, who were about 60 people, and reflected a diverse group of students.

“I was impressed by the speaker’s breadth of knowledge,” Omair Saadat said. “A lot of health policy is dictated by religion or politicians trying to cater to religious groups. I was amazed by the speaker’s knowledge of the issues.”

Also Omar Shakir, president of the Muslim Students Awareness Network (MSAN), also expressed his admiration.

“Our initial idea was that, this year, we wanted to tackle contemporary issues,” Shakir said. “We, as Muslims, believe that Islam provides the lens with which to view issues. Dr. Khan is a top expert in the field of bioethics, who could speak from both a religious and secular background.”

“I think that we had a lot of discussion and dialogue,” he said. “I mean people continued these discussions outsides the walls of the event in their classrooms and dorms. I think that it was effective in that sense, and such dialogue is central to MSAN outreach to students.”

Source: The StanfordDaily