What is the ruling on dissecting the bodies of the dead for the purpose of teaching students?
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Question : He says: What is the ruling on dissecting the bodies of the dead for the purpose of teaching students? And is it permissible for a man to dissect a woman, and vice versa? Are they alive or dead?
Answer : They are dead. It is not permissible, because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Breaking the bone of a dead person is like breaking it while he is alive. Did you understand? What remains for us is if these bodies are the bodies of disbelievers whom we killed in jihad in the cause of Allah, because it is known that they have no sanctity. But do we say that this falls under the mutilation that is prohibited, or do we say it does not fall under it?
Because the prohibition of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding mutilation may mean it applies when the person is alive, and it appears that it falls under mutilation, especially if our enemies know about this, because if they know about it, they will do to us what we did to them. But you know now that most doctors, and especially the doctors and the rest, are disbelievers who do not care about the legislation. Yes, indeed.
Answer : They are dead. It is not permissible, because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Breaking the bone of a dead person is like breaking it while he is alive. Did you understand? What remains for us is if these bodies are the bodies of disbelievers whom we killed in jihad in the cause of Allah, because it is known that they have no sanctity. But do we say that this falls under the mutilation that is prohibited, or do we say it does not fall under it?
Because the prohibition of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding mutilation may mean it applies when the person is alive, and it appears that it falls under mutilation, especially if our enemies know about this, because if they know about it, they will do to us what we did to them. But you know now that most doctors, and especially the doctors and the rest, are disbelievers who do not care about the legislation. Yes, indeed.
Source
قناة «فضيلة الشيخ محمد بن صالح العثيمين»، 194 - 332 ما حكم تشريح جثث الموتى بغرض تعليم الطلاب؟ الفتاوى الثلاثية - ابن عثيمين — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.
