Medical assistance in dying is lawful in Canada in defined circumstances and is not accepted in Islamic law. It does not change inheritance entitlements.
The Canadian position
Canadian law does not bar inheritance because of the manner of death.
The estate is administered normally.
The Islamic position
The four schools prohibit intentionally ending life. That is a religious question separate from the distribution.
Families facing this should seek scholarly counsel directly.
Where the four schools differ
This question turns on one issue in our madhhab register: Withdrawing treatment, and when a person is dead — whether treatment must be sought at all, when life support may be withdrawn, and how brain death is treated
| School | Position |
|---|---|
| HanafiMaliki | Seeking treatment is simply permitted. The encyclopaedia names both schools together as holding that tadawi is mubah — lawful, but neither owed nor specially rewarded — and notes that the Maliki books put it in their own idiom: “there is no objection to seeking treatment”. On this footing a patient who declines a treatment has declined something he was free to take or leave, which is the classical premise nearest to a modern refusal of care. Both schools are named together in the passage relied on, and the encyclopaedia restates the same grouping in its entry on the sick person. Sources: al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Tadawi", §6 "Hukmuhu al-taklifi" -- the four positions on whether seeking treatment is obliged, recommended, permitted or better left (vol. 11 p. 117) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) · al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Marid", §41 "Tadawi al-marid" -- the same four positions restated side by side (vol. 36 p. 371) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) — both schools named together in the passage relied on, and the Maliki wording recorded separately. |
| Shafi’i | Recommended — and obligatory where the benefit is certain. The Shafi’is hold seeking treatment mustahabb, arguing from the Prophet’s “treat yourselves, for God has sent down no disease without sending down a cure for it” and from his own cupping. The school then draws the line this issue turns on: the recommendation holds where the benefit is not certain; where it is certain — the example given is binding the site of a bleeding — treatment is obligatory. That distinction, between a measure that will certainly work and one that may not, is the classical shape of the modern line between treatment that must be given and treatment that is futile. Sources: al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Tadawi", §6 "Hukmuhu al-taklifi" -- the four positions on whether seeking treatment is obliged, recommended, permitted or better left (vol. 11 p. 117) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) · al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Tadawi", §6 continued -- the Shafi'i qualification, Ahmad's own text that leaving treatment is better, and Ibn al-Qayyim's rebuttal (vol. 11 pp. 117-118) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) · al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Marid", §41 "Tadawi al-marid" -- the same four positions restated side by side (vol. 36 p. 371) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) — the Shafi’i position and its qualification stated as such in the source. |
| Hanbali | Leaving treatment is better — and the school argues with itself about it. The position of the Hanbali majority, and Ahmad stated it himself, is that leaving treatment is the better course, “because it is nearer to reliance on God”. Against that, al-Qadi, Ibn ‘Aqil and Ibn al-Jawzi — all three of them Hanbalis — are named as holding it recommended, with the Shafi’is. Ibn al-Qayyim puts the counter-argument at length: the sound hadiths command treatment, and it no more contradicts reliance on God than eating contradicts it, “so let a servant not make his own incapacity into reliance, nor his reliance into incapacity”. Ibn Qudama adds what the school recommends instead: that a sick person be patient, and that complaining much is disliked. Sources: al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Tadawi", §6 "Hukmuhu al-taklifi" -- the four positions on whether seeking treatment is obliged, recommended, permitted or better left (vol. 11 p. 117) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) · al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Tadawi", §6 continued -- the Shafi'i qualification, Ahmad's own text that leaving treatment is better, and Ibn al-Qayyim's rebuttal (vol. 11 pp. 117-118) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) · al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, entry "Marid", §41 "Tadawi al-marid" -- the same four positions restated side by side (vol. 36 p. 371) (Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Kuwait) — the majority position, Ahmad’s own text and the three named dissenters all taken from the passage. |
Researched positions from our madhhab register — issue end-of-life-care, reviewed 2026-09-01.
When a person is dead. The International Islamic Fiqh Academy, Resolution 17 (5/3), 3rd session, Amman, October 1986, resolves that “a person is considered deceased, and all Shariah rulings pertaining to death become effective, if he or she shows one of the following two signs: (1) complete cardio-respiratory arrest and confirmation by physicians that such an arrest is irreversible; (2) cessation of all brain activity and confirmation by physicians that such cessation is irreversible and that the brain has entered a state of” — the Academy’s own English page breaks off there, and the Arabic original completes it with “and his brain has begun to disintegrate”. It then adds: “In these circumstances, the person may be weaned from the life-support equipment, even though some of the organs in his or her body, such as the heart, continue to function artificially.” The Muslim World League’s Islamic Fiqh Council, Resolution 49 (2/10), 10th session, Makkah, October 1987, expressly citing the Amman resolution, is more cautious about the second half: the equipment may be removed once all brain function has irreversibly ceased and a committee of three specialist physicians so determines — “but he is not judged dead in law unless breathing and heartbeat stop completely after the equipment is removed”. So the two bodies agree on withdrawal and differ on when the legal moment of death falls. The North American statement. AMJA’s 19th Imams’ Conference (2023) permits withdrawing life-sustaining treatment “with the consent of the patient or their guardians ... if the doctors see that the therapeutic procedures are futile in achieving recovery or maintaining a dignified life, and that they only serve to prolong the suffering of the patients and their families”; permits a DNR direction in a terminal illness; treats artificial nutrition and hydration as forms of treatment that may likewise be withheld when futile; recommends the testimony of three experts before a condition is judged incurable; and holds that advance directives, living wills and medical powers of attorney “are in harmony with Islamic law, and their use is permissible and legitimate” — which is the sentence a Canadian Muslim planning ahead actually needs. Its earlier fatwa 2193 allows a DNR direction where the patient is in a vegetative condition and not otherwise. This is not euthanasia, and a body says so. Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyya was asked, in terms, what the difference is. Its fatwa 635 answers that removing devices that keep a hopeless patient alive with no improvement is lawful if the physicians so advise — but that devices serving another purpose, such as easing breathing, may not be removed — and then: “this differs from what is called euthanasia, in which the patient asks the doctor to end his life, or the doctor decides it himself because of the patient’s disability or the severity of his pain. That is categorically forbidden, because the patient’s life there is ongoing and not dependent on the machines ... ending it is taking a soul God has forbidden to be taken.” The same body, in 2025, called euthanasia “among the gravest of the major sins”, however requested. AMJA states the prohibition alongside the permission but does not spell the distinction out, which is why the words above are Dar al-Ifta’s. What is still open. The Fiqh Academy’s Resolution 67 (5/7) of 1992 discusses hopeless cases but its own recommendations leave the decisive question unanswered — “who decides to discontinue treatment in such cases, is it a panel of doctors, or an ethics committee, or the doctors with the patient’s relatives?” — and we found no later Academy resolution closing it. AMJA fills the gap for North America by sending an unresolved dispute to “a neutral third party like the hospital’s ethics committee or the judiciary”.
Full positions, evidence and history: Withdrawing treatment, and when a person is dead — the issue page.
This is legal information only. For advice on your own circumstances, speak to a lawyer.
Citations & sources
Every factual claim on this page traces to a source below. Details change — check the original source before relying on any figure, fee or legal position.
- Egyptian Dar al-Ifta — Dar al-Ifta al-Missriyyah
- International Islamic Fiqh Academy — Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
- Canadian Legal Information Institute — CanLII