HIV/AIDS in the Muslim Middle East

Christian H. Meier

Doktorandenkolleg "Zeitkulturen"

Konstanz Universität

Alemania

Since the 1980s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been posing one of the biggest challenges to the international community, and it will continue doing so in the 21st century. The challenge does not only refer to health and care but also to the social, the economic and the political stability of the societes. While the Middle East has for a long time been one of the regions least affected by the epidemic, in recent years HIV/AIDS rates there grew “at an alarming rate”, according to the WHO Regional Bureau. UNAIDS estimates the number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the region around half a million. This is still low, compared to regions as Sub-Saharan Africa or the Pacific. But apparently, in the Middle East HIV/AIDS is not confined to specific groups any more, but has started to spread into the general population. More than in other parts of the world, many of the practices that contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS—paid sex, sex between men and injecting drug use—are socially not accepted and/or illegal in the Muslim societies of the Middle East. Therefore, stigma and ignorance are widespread.

As a UNAIDS report states: “Efforts to defuse the social stigma and institutional discrimination experienced by vulnerable groups remain few and far between; so, too, education and communication to deepen public knowledge of the epidemic.” How do Islamic scholars in the Arab states assess the HIV/AIDS epidemic? In my contribution, I will analyze the proceedings of a conference of the Islamic Organisation of Medical Sciences (IOMS) of the early 1990s which dealt with the topic of “Islamic views on the societal problems of AIDS”. The IOMS papers, consisting of the studies presented, discussion notes and the final recommendations of the conference, provide invaluable source material for the scholar, interested in the process of decision-making and the arguments among Ulama as well as physicians.

In the IOMS’s gathering, different aspects of HIV/AIDS were discussed among the participants: medical implications and requirements but primarily legal prescriptions of the Sharia, connected with those infected by HIV. The topics of many of the presentations show a distinct tendency towards an apologetic stance, defining HIV/AIDS primarily as a legal-moral problem to be dealt with in the framework of the Shariah. I will also pay attention to the final recommendations of the conference, which advise certain actions in order to prevent a further spread of HIV. In many cases they constitute the basis upon which later on Fatwas will be formulated. In these religious-legal pronouncements, the apologetic approach to the illness usually dominates over other aspects, such as prevention and care. HIV/AIDS is above all seen in the framework of religion and Islamic values and norms pertaining to family, marriage and sexual life.

About Christian Meier

M.A., Middle Eastern Studies (University of Hamburg) Ph.D. student, University of Konstanz (Center of Excellence: "Cultural Foundations of Social Integration") Editor, "zenith - Middle Eastern Quarterly" (Germany)

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