What is the ruling on dissecting the dead?

The questioner : The ruling on dissecting the dead, or in other words, is it permissible for a Muslim to work in forensic medicine?

The Shaykh : It is not permissible in my view; because the Messenger (peace be upon him) used to say: And this forensic medicine, which necessitates dissecting the bodies of many of the dead, is a Western disbeliever method that gives no weight to the dead, does not respect them, and does not value them...
...and that which is not fitting except for Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). Therefore, our Shari'ah is a moderate Shari'ah, as is well known, and in this particular detail, the authentic hadith came to combine between the two matters: respecting the dead and not exaggerating in respecting them. That is his saying (peace be upon him): So, his prohibition (peace and blessings be upon him) of sitting on the grave is respect for the dead and repelling humiliation from them, and his prohibition of praying toward the dead is so that they are not exalted with the exaltation of facing, as Allah commanded facing, like the Ka'bah for example. The disbelievers mix between the two matters, or in the time that they may exalt some of the dead such that they circumambulate around them and sit by their graves, as is known regarding some of the disbelieving atheists, like the grave of Lenin and Stalin and the like. And from another side, the dead has no sanctity with many of the disbelievers, if not all of them, especially the Zoroastrians and the Buddhists, whose fate is that one of them is burned by fire. All of this is contrary to the Shari'ah, which gives the dead after his death some sanctity; but it prohibits exaggeration and extremism in it. So, of this nature, and a violation of the Prophetic hadith etiquette, is dissecting the bodies of the dead. He (peace be upon him) said: It came in a narration: And I do not find in this word, which I consider a descriptive attribute of the dead, meaning a space for Muslim doctors to take the bodies of non-Muslims as a means to achieve what they are aiming for, which is looking into some diseases or some of the internal secrets of the bodies or the like. As for them coming with the dead of Muslims and dissecting them as they dissect the bodies of the disbelievers, this is not permissible in the religion of Islam. Clear, if Allah wills.

The questioner: Yes.