Waleed Basyouni – Is it Permissible to Seek A Career That Exposes A Sister To A Mixed Work Environment -Ask The
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The host of a show discusses a sister's mixed work environment and her desire to pursue a degree in radiology. She also discusses the importance of medical ethics and guidelines in sharia law. The host emphasizes the importance of avoiding accidents and the need for proper education and training for healthcare workers.
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As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah, welcome to a
new episode of Ask the Imam, a program
that we host at the Clear Lake Islamic
Center.
You can see the answers to your questions
on our YouTube channel.
If you want to ask a question, send
us an email at asktheimam, one word, at
themasjid.org.
That is asktheimam at themasjid.org.
As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah, Shaykh.
We have a question from a sister who's
a resident, and she's studying radiology.
And she is on a visa here, and
she goes to, in her residency, most of
her work involves interpreting images, of course.
But there are a few, she calls haram,
impermissible things that she's encountering.
That's what she termed it as.
Mixed environment, she says, it's a mixed work
environment.
She does ultrasound to male patients with minimal
touching, she says, scrubbing the patient to the
elbow, scrubbing her, she goes through scrubbing process
to the elbow, which means that she's going
to have to expose her arm for, let's
say, a few minutes.
She says also due to this work environment,
would that make it haram for her to
pursue this?
Also, she mentioned in order for her to
get the proper training and the proper education
and practical aspects of her field, she says
that she has to sign an agreement which
says if there's any dispute or anything that
arises, that the judgment will be up to
the rules and regulations that are like American
man-made rules and regulations that are not
necessarily in agreement with Islam or something like
this.
She thinks, would that make her violating her
faith when she does that?
Bismillah, alhamdulillah, salatu salam, inshallah.
First of all, being a doctor, in general,
it's something noble.
And Imam al-Zahabi, when he talked about
Aisha, he said she was the first female
doctor in Islam.
She used to prescribe medications to people, people
come to her and she will tell them,
and she learned that from her father.
And through history, you'll find women played a
role when it comes to giving medical care
to patients or to people who are injured
in war, after war, and many narrations in
that regard.
And that led the scholar, Rahimahullah, to say
that it is permissible for a woman, for
medical reasons, to touch a male who is
not mahram to her or to look at
his body.
She can look only to the area where
it needs attention.
So if there is an area that doesn't
need attention, you don't look at it, from
the awrah, for example.
And it doesn't matter, even the same thing
with a male who is a doctor.
And al-Fuqaha, like Nuh, Rahimahullah, and others
from a long time ago, even talk about,
even if that required for a person to
look at the awrah, a private part even,
the major awrah.
But the time, and it's limited in time
and locations based on the need and the
circumstances of the case.
So if you have to take an x
-ray, for example, an area that has to
be exposed, to be touched, to be fixed,
to make sure that it is in the
right place, that's allowed.
And usually, you'll wear gloves anyway.
It's not a direct touch.
That's number one.
Also, as we know, any medical practice in
the world, in any place, there is always
an ethic.
You know, there is a handbook showing like
some medical ethics that you have to go
by.
And if you look at these ethics, like
you go by or the standard that doctors
should follow, the medical ethics that doctors in
the US, for example, follow, it's pretty aligned
with whatever Muslims have produced in Muslim country.
And even though, unfortunately, like most of the
Muslim country, ethic codes are taken from Western,
actually, ethic codes.
But anyway, it's in the line with the
Muslim view and guidelines.
So that's what that solved the problem that
you said, oh, I have to send dispute.
Usually, when you have a dispute, you go
back to what the medical board in your
state says, or the governor, government in local
government in your state or your city or
your hospital, what's their contract says, what's their
medical ethics codes are.
So nothing wrong with going back to that,
because this does not have to have a
verse or hadith.
These things usually are based on a common
sense, a common principles, which is justice, which
is privacy, which is then which level of
negligence will be responsible for which is not
things of that nature, which is go according
to the guidelines of Sharia.
Sharia does not have specific rules.
Like there is no hadith talk specifically about
the rules of, you know, how to do
an operations, what's the contract between two.
It has a guidelines.
Very few things in Islam are specifically mentioned
as Sharia law.
It's very, very specific.
They're very, very few.
But 90 plus percent of it as guidelines
left for us to come up with these
laws.
So, so many of the laws are man
-made laws too, but in the guidelines of
the Sharia.
So nothing wrong with that signing the contract
that says that, that you refer to that
as a judgment.
What's haram when you believe that the judge,
there is something contradict the deen.
Allah said haram to drink alcohol.
And somebody say, yes, I know it's better
to, to drink alcohol.
And you believe that this is better.
That's became the kufr.
That's became the contradicting your faith.
Right.
So in regard to you, the only problem
that I see in what you said in
your question is the area when you're scrubbing
your own elbow and exposing your hand in
front of maybe men.
You try your best, my sister, to do
this when there is no men around you.
And if you do it, you know, you
do one hand at the time you wash
it, then you basically dry it and cover,
then do the other hand and then cover.
You try your best to minimize the export.
This is a very minimal like kind of
violation comparing to the amount of goodness that
will happen to you, after you finish your
business and you graduated and the good that
you can bring to your family, to yourself,
to the community, to the society at large.
May Allah give you tawfiq.
So I don't believe that there is any,
it's not haram what you're doing, what you're
studying, what you are going to be practicing
in the future.
Thank you very much for your questions.
We'll see you next episode.