Life and death in Judaism and Islam

The event, on Wednesday, May 26th, aims to explore how two traditions which are often portrayed as sharply distinctive handle the question of death, as well as associated issues such as funerary rites and concepts of an afterlife, in surprisingly similar ways.

Organisers hope that it may provide the basis for a “Judaeo-Islamic” perspective on dealing with death and bereavement, with potential benefits for professionals who, like doctors and social workers, care for those nearing the end of their lives.

As a result, the symposium will not just bring together academics, but religious leaders, hospital chaplains and medics, among others.

The event has been co-organised by the University’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies and the Woolf Institute’s Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations. The discussions will be compiled into a report, which will be available on both institution’s websites at a later date.

The symposium recognises that in spite of their differences, Judaism and Islam have more similarities with one another than they do with any other religion.

Dr. Ed Kessler, director of the Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations, said: “Islam and Judaism concur in that the social order must be built in accordance with Godly norms, as they appear in each of these traditions’ revealed world and derived religious law.”

“In this symposium, we aim to explore notions of death and bereavement by considering the doctrinal dimensions, in relation to the implications they have for the daily lives of Jews and Muslims.”

Although the two traditions do not completely agree on how to handle the issue of death, both are sufficiently similar that they have, for instance, campaigned together on the right to use MRI and CR scans instead of conducting an autopsy.

Understanding the basis of these similarities could be of use to people who care for the dying, not least because Jews and Muslims constitute a significant minority of people in the UK.

More broadly, the shared wisdom of the two faiths may well prove informative in the development of guidelines to ensure that people who are dying and their families are treated fairly and with dignity.

Many professionals working in related fields are now being encouraged to take a more “holistic” approach when handling this issue. Doctors, for example, are increasingly required not just to manage a dying person’s illness, but to help them prepare them and their families for the moment of death itself. Newly-released guidelines issues by the General Medical Council stipulate that doctors should make advanced care plans for patients who are likely to die within 12 months with them and their families, in order to prevent emotional distress and conflict further down the line.

Conference organiser Dr. Marta Dominguez said: “The rapidly changing arena of modern medical ethics provides a fascinating framework in which to compare different attitudes towards the processes of dying and bereavement in Judaism and Islam. This is interesting ground for comparative research not only due to their monotheistic nature and historical interaction, but also for the special status both give to religious law.”

Professor Yasir Suleiman, Director of the Centre of Islamic Studies, added: “With the transformation of social structure, the ways of making sense of a particular religious ethos change.”

“We think that in the rapidly changing arena of medical ethics, a symposium that explores the variety of Jewish and Muslim voices will enrich our understanding of the social role these two religions have in the British multicultural landscape.”

The symposium, “Life and death in Judaism and Islam” will be held at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge. A full, two day conference on the same subject is also being planned for January or February next year. Further information can be found at https://www.cis.cam.ac.uk/