Health

AtlasMed project

Palliative care is an area where religion and the comfort and support that people get from it are relevant, precisely because the people involved are in the final phase of their lives. Migrants with a Muslim background of the first generation are increasingly confronted with so-called lifestyle diseases such as cancer, etc. As a result, medical decisions have to be made that mark the transition from a curative to a palliative setting. In practice, it appears that life questions that are religious in nature play a role in the decisions made by this specific target group of Muslim patients and their families. At the intersection of questions surrounding life and death, deep religious convictions emerge that give color to the religious meaning before, during and after palliative decision-making.

Research

In the research we have done by and for Muslims in the Netherlands, we looked at classical and contemporary views of Muslim theologians on this subject, but also at practice[1]. These views of Muslim theologians are important because they have authority for Muslims, but also determine, for example, the advice that imams give to people from their religious community when they are faced with medical decision-making in a palliative setting. In practice, it appears that tension regularly arises where the Dutch view on the question of what constitutes good care in a palliative setting does not always fit in well with alternative Muslim views.

  [1] Muslim Jurisprudence on Withdrawing Treatment from Incurable Patients: A Directed Content Analysis of the Papers of the Islamic Fiqh Council of the Muslim World League | SpringerLink