Is it permissible to donate organs?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : One of the conditions of a gift, O Muhammad ibn Salama, is that the donor must own the item being given. Do you own your organs?

The questioner : It is a trust, my dear.

The Shaykh : Okay, I am asking you now: Do you own your organs? You do not own them.

The questioner : We praise Allah if a starving person is prevented from eating, meaning this is a dire necessity for the second person.

The Shaykh : What is the point? It is not necessary.

The questioner : Let us say, for example, that one of the kidneys is completely non-functional.

The Shaykh : Okay, if both kidneys are non-functional, do we have a hundred percent certainty that the kidney transplant will succeed?
Dire necessity, my brothers, does not make the forbidden permissible except under two conditions. The first condition is that the dire necessity cannot be averted except by it, and the second condition is that the dire necessity is averted by it. Did you understand, O Jalal? If you did not understand, two conditions are required to make the forbidden permissible due to dire necessity: the first is that the dire necessity is averted by it, and the second is that it cannot be averted except by it. Did you understand?
And you know the difference between the two conditions. "The dire necessity is averted by it" means that if a person consumes something forbidden, the dire necessity is averted.
And we know that one is saved, such as eating carrion. We know that a starving person, if he eats, is saved from death. "It cannot be averted except by it" means that we do not find any lawful alternative to it. If we find a lawful alternative, there is no dire necessity. Okay, if we find something forbidden but it is lighter, like intoxicants or tobacco. What is the listener saying? Intoxicants. One person says: Is it a dire necessity for a cigarette or a glass of intoxicants?

The questioner : It is not possible, it is not possible. This is not possible. One cannot utilize a cigarette or intoxicants.

The Shaykh : I am stating this as an obligation: the higher is averted by the lower. And it is not known that a person can ever be in dire necessity for intoxicants except in one case: if he chokes on a piece of food and nothing else is present, then at that time he benefits. Is the dire necessity averted or not?