An Ethical Roadmap for Prioritizing Medical Resources Within Muslim Societies During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Profound ethical challenges have been generated by the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The unprecedented plights that have arisen have led nations to devise ethical roadmaps for handling their finite resources. Muslim countries are no exception and must continue to endure the effects of the pandemic, as more waves of infections from new strains are being reported. Given the scarcity of resources available to some countries, it is critical to adopt a roadmap to prioritize these limited resources based on ethical guidelines that are acceptable to Muslim communities. This work describes the concept of “ijtihad”, a process frequently used by Muslim scholars to develop novel solutions to deal with unprecedented events, such as the recent pandemic. In this manuscript, Islamic perspectives were discussed on social justice and equality and how limited resources can be used in a way consistent with such perspectives. Relying on previous experiences of the Muslim community, such as the plague of Amwas, in which social distancing and quarantine strategies were used effectively to control the disease, and utilizing available guidelines such as “Al-Qawaid Al-Fiqhiyyah” and “Fiqh Al-Nawazel”, we propose a practical protocol and roadmap that can be applied in the current crisis. Managing and prioritizing limited medical resources requires a just and ethically acceptable system. Islamic leaders should immediately develop a roadmap that emphasizes ethical values such as ihsan and altruism to help Muslim countries prioritize the limited medical resources available to medical staff to guarantee the sustainability of health services.