The Case of Tafida Raqeeb
When a family faced the hardest decision imaginable, they asked the Council for a ruling. What followed reached the High Court of Justice.
Could a parent consent to withdrawing life support?
In July 2019, Tafida’s parents asked the Council for an Islamic verdict. Her doctors at the hospital had concluded that treatment should be withdrawn; the family wanted to move her to a hospital in Italy that was willing to continue her care. Before anything else, they needed to know what their faith required of them.
A clear and unequivocal answer
The Council’s panel of scholars deliberated and issued its ruling in plain terms.
“It is absolutely impermissible for the parents, or anyone else, to give consent for the removal of the life-supporting machine from their child.”The Islamic Council’s ruling, July 2019
From a ruling to the High Court
The hospital declined to transfer Tafida to the Gaslini Hospital in Genoa. Holding to the Council’s ruling and their own conviction, her parents took the matter to the High Court of Justice. In October 2019, Mr Justice MacDonald found in the family’s favour — recognising that the test of a child’s best interests must give weight to ethical, moral and religious considerations, and to the family’s freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
“The sanctity of life is a fundamental, indeed sacred, principle.”Mr Justice MacDonald, High Court of Justice — October 2019
A ruling that carried real-world weight
A court of the land weighed a family’s religious conviction and arrived at an outcome that affirmed the principle the Council holds to be sacred. It is the clearest possible illustration of what the Council is: not a service that issues certificates, but a body whose rulings are considered, principled, and capable of standing in the highest forums of the country.
Based on the Council’s public statement of 7 October 2019. Quotations are reproduced from the Council’s ruling and the High Court judgment.