Najd, and unfortunately, the scholars are falling short in new issues in medicine and the like, so what is your guidance regarding such a matter?

The questioner : Peace be upon you.

The Shaykh : And upon you be peace.

The questioner : Your Eminence, the question I wish to ask may be outside the usual scope of questions. It concerns a specific group of people, namely Muslim doctors working in hospitals. It is a great pity that our distinguished scholars are falling short regarding contemporary jurisprudence and problems—especially new problems. I give as an example the disease of the age, the disease known as immune deficiency or AIDS. This disease has now become one of the serious diseases that consumes many people. It is enough for me to say that even newborn infants have begun to show these symptoms. In New York City alone, one thousand children are born with this disease every day. We do not bury our heads in the sand and say it does not exist among us; rather, it does exist. The question, in brief:
Now, these children are born with the disease coming through the mothers, meaning it is transmitted through the mothers!

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner : During pregnancy, if the mother is afflicted with this disease, it is transmitted to the fetus. This transmission occurs in the range of twenty to fifty percent, according to studies, and this is well known. The question, in brief: If blood tests confirm that the mother carries this virus and that there is a twenty to fifty percent chance the child will be afflicted with this disease, and if we learn of this before four months, which is when the soul is breathed into the fetus, or if we learn of it after four months, what is the solution? If we leave this child and the pregnancy continues, it means this child will be born with this disease, with the consequences that follow, and to date, medicine has not found a cure for this disease. So my question, in brief, regarding the abortion of the woman in this case: I naturally assume that if there is no answer to this question, has this topic been studied or not? May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : First of all, I say frankly: I was surprised by the beginning of your question, where you accused the scholars of something they are innocent of. And you know that this disease is new to people. Was such a question directed to some scholars in whom you trust, and did they withhold the answer from you, so that you attribute to them that they do not address the problems of life? That is one point. And I wonder, are the scholars more to be blamed, or those who do not ask?!
Our Lord, Exalted is He, says in the Noble Qur'an: . Do you, my brother the doctor or physician, imagine that a scholar should be well-versed in all sciences, or are you content that he be specialized in a science that is among those called a collective obligation, such that if some people perform it, it drops off the rest? I do not think anyone would say that it is obligatory for a scholar among the Muslim scholars to know more than is obligatory for a doctor among the Muslim doctors. I mean: Is it obligatory for the Muslim doctor to be a scholar in hadith, jurisprudence, exegesis, and language, or is it sufficient for him if he masters the profession in which he is specialized? There is no doubt that the answer will be the latter.
So likewise, the scholars have specializations. This one is specialized in the science of exegesis, that one in hadith, this one in jurisprudence, and that one in language, and so on. If something is unclear to a Muslim, and a doctor asks about an Arabic word whose meaning did not appear to him, he asks the people of language and does not ask, for example, the jurist, because he is not specialized in it, even though it is supposed that he should have a grasp of the Arabic language, because he cannot derive jurisprudence without it. But you doctors are the people who know best the benefit of specialization. In medicine, for example, there are many aspects of specialization. If the matter is so, and it is one hundred percent so, then when the Muslim doctor needs to know the ruling on a new ailment or disease, it is he who must perform the duty of asking, in implementation of His saying, Exalted is He: . It is not the scholar who must leave the knowledge in which he is specialized, which is religious knowledge, and ask about what is new in the science of medicine, what is new in the opinions of the science of astronomy, and what is new in the sciences of chemistry and physics, I do not know. This is a matter of obligation, as He said, Exalted is He: . So, given this situation, the individuals of the Muslim community should cooperate with one another, each extending to the other in his specialization. So the scholar you referred to extends to you what he has of knowledge, but it is not required of him to know what you have of complaints, questions, difficulties, and so on, unless you convey what is in your heart to him. At that point, it becomes obligatory for him to answer you, in implementation of His saying, Exalted is He: . You have then performed the question, and in implementation of his saying, peace and blessings be upon him: . So the scholar at that time must answer you. And his answer, without a doubt, does not necessarily have to be positive. Half of knowledge is "I do not know." And our Lord, Exalted is He, says: . He may refer you to someone else, just as doctors refer some of their patients to someone else who is not specialized in the patient's disease, and so on.