Nils Fischer (Vinzenz Pallotti University): Islamic Bioethics

About the Speaker

Nils Fischer studied philosophy, Islamic studies, Arabic, and Persian in Bonn, Tehran, and Damascus. He has been a research assistant at Vinzenz Pallotti University (VPU) since 2012. From 2018 to 2021, he worked on the project TONGUE (Cultural Diversity and Conflicts in Health Care Facilities: An Empirical Study) as a research assistant under Prof. Dr. Helen Kohlen, Chair for Care Policy and Ethics in Nursing (VPU). His main areas of work and research are Islamic bioethics, medical ethics in the states of North Africa and the Middle East, intercultural and interreligious ethics, and ethics of migration.

About the Topic

The viewpoint of Muslims in the field of bioethics is interesting, as it represents a specific religious approach to ethics in general and bioethics in particular. This approach is important within the global bioethics debate, as Muslims are a large group and many countries have a Muslim tradition and a history shaped by Islam. The talk will introduce key concepts of Islamic bioethics, distinguish participants in the “Islamic bioethical debate”, and present and discuss the example of organ transplantation medicine. Finally, the relevance of “Islamic bioethics” for “Western” societies, especially for Europe and Germany, will be shown.