A growing body of literature both in the US and abroad demonstrates that Muslims rarely sign up to be organ donors and that a significant number hold negative attitudes towards organ transplantation. This Muslim “problem” with organ donation is of great interest to community leaders, public health officials, healthcare professionals and policymakers, and has proven challenging to address. A dominant narrative within critical discourses is that Muslim reticence towards donation is rooted in religious and biomedical knowledge gaps. In other words, that the less than ideal donation rates result from a lack of public awareness about the societal need for and benefits from organ donation, as well as lack of knowledgeable of the Islamic juridical positions that deem organ donation morally licit. These suppositions undergird educational interventions in communities, practice policies, as well as fatwa-writing, in the hope of changing Muslim organ donation attitudes and behaviors.

This presentation will critically examine this narrative from both a social scientific and a normative lens. Beginning with the normative, I will highlight conceptual issues with the category of “deceased” organ donation paying particular attention to plurality among Islamic scholars, as well as leading bioethicists, on the question of death determination for organ donation. The second part of the presentation will feature empirical data from Muslim communities in the US and frameworks from behavior change science in order to critically evaluate educational and behavior change interventions. This analysis will speak to the fact that religious permissibility is not the only question Muslim communities have, and that religious edicts are not sufficient behavior change tools. The final part of the presentation will focus on an informed-choice model for organ donation education and policy, an approach that we have proven effective in improving knowledge and behavioral intent for donation through an RCT in US Muslim communities. harmony with Mother Nature and her laws.