Our Shaykh, Muḥammad ibn Ḥizām, may Allāh preserve him, was asked the following question:

Question:

“The questioner says: In some lands they have a registration process for those who want to donate their limbs to those in need of them after they pass away. They take his healthy limbs which can be used and give it to those who are in need of it, while acknowledging that this registration process is controlled by the government and not by different groups or a specific hospital. Is it permissible for the Muslim to perform this type of donation?”

Answer:

“No, he does not have the right to do that, he has no right to cut anything from his limbs while alive or after he passes away. The Prophet ﷺ said:

“Breaking a dead man’s bone is like breaking it when he is alive.”

[Reported by Aḥmad and other than him from the ḥadīth of ‘Ā’ishah – raḍhiyallāhu ‘anhā]

A person cannot donate any part of his limbs, not while he is alive nor after he passes away. He is commanded while alive that he preserves himself.

Allāh says:

{وَلَا تُلۡقُوا۟ بِأَیۡدِیكُمۡ إِلَى ٱلتَّهۡلُكَةِ}

“And do not throw yourselves into destruction.”

[Sūrah Al-Baqarah 195]

And the Prophet ﷺ said:

“There should neither be harming (of others without cause), nor reciprocating harm (between two parties).”

After he passes away, he has no right to expose himself to mutilation; The Prophet ﷺ forbade spoliation and mutilation, and breaking the bone after passing away is like breaking it while alive.

So based on this, that which is concerning the limbs, if a Muslim is in need of a limb, then let him purchase it from the disbelievers since the disbeliever has no sanctity due to his disbelief.” [Reference (with some edits)] [Reference]

Translated by

Majid Jawed Al-Afghanee
Abu Aisha