Cryonics And Death

Assalamualaikum.

Usually my posts are in Malay but due to the amount of English essays I have to write during my diploma programme, I think it's a great idea to start writing in English. The Malay version of this post can be found here.

The other day my lecturer told my whole class to make a research about cryonics. Because my whole knowledge on this subject basically came from a tv show, so I turned to my most trusted and easiest source of knowledge, the Internet.

Cryonics is a branch of what we call fringe science. In some respect it is similar to cryogenics but way more awesome(creepy). Apparently some scientists believe that we are actually truly dead when our brain stopped working. Amazingly the brain does not stop working until few hours after our heart stops. When a person's heart stops beating he or she is clinically dead but his or her brain is still functioning. So according to the scientists, clinically dead is not truly dead. The person can still be resuscitated but unfortunately our medical technology is still not good enough to do that. So, by undergoing cryonic process, clinically dead people hope to be revived and live their lives again in the future when advancement in medical field become good enough to save them.

The cryonic process is the process of freezing your body after a doctor pronounced that you are dead in hope of preserving your brain from shutting down or in other words, preventing you from a true death. There are two types of cryonic process.

• The first one is full body preservation. The whole body is preserved by freezing them. This is more realistic approach to cryonics but unfortunately more expensive.
   
• The second type is neuropreservation. The preservation of the head WITHOUT the body. People who choose this type of cryonics are hoping that medical advancement in the future can help them to regenerate their body. Or the other option is they are hoping somehow the information in their brains can be transferred to computer.

At first look, I have to agree that cryonics seems downright haram. But I'm here to give some ideas for discussions regarding this subject. In Islam, there are few instances where some people are granted the power to give life to dead people.

• Jesus alayh as-salam was given the ability to raise people from the dead [Al-Maidah:110] 
• In the time of Moses alayh as-salam Allah commanded the people of Bani Israel to smite a dead person with parts of baqara as-safraa'(yellow cow) and then he came to life [Al-Baqara:73](some mufassirin argued that actually the parts of the cow was smited on the murderer) 
• Firaun laknatullah is said to have the power to give life [Al-Baqara:258](some mufassirin translated this so that the meaning is Firaun can opt to let someone live rather than give life to dead people) 
• Dajjal laknatullah is also said to have this power. In a hadeeth by Imam Muslim said that Dajjal kills a man and then raised him back to life.

So there are few of such incidents where people are resurrected in this world from their death. But cryonics operates in the belief that the people are not really dead. The Prophet sallallahu alayh as-salam said that every sickness there is a cure except for death. Which means that you can still be cured if you are not truly dead. So in a sense, cryonics does not contradict with the Prophet's teachings.

There are however, many implications that will arise if this process is accepted as mainstream science.

First of all, human life will be devalued. The prospect of living hundred of years will make someone feel that they have all the time to make their lives. People will cease to strive for success and will always sit back and hang around.

Cryonics will also lead to massive overpopulation of the world. The number of people that actually 'dies' will decrease exponentially and the world will be crowded by these will-be-revived bodies.

Will there be a law on who can be preserved? Let's take an example. Hitler, will he be allowed to undergo cryonics? Is it necessary for a president to be preserved? Will company that is already passed down to a son be given back to the father in the future?

Not all of it is bad though, this technology can be used in interstellar space travel. Although it has a different term. It is called suspended animation rather than cryonics. In 2005, scientists at Pittsburgh University actually succeeded in bringing back several dogs back to life after being clinically dead for few hours by suspended animation. Unfortunately some of the dogs suffered serious brain damage.

Personally, I think that neuropreservation is the most important thing in this field. I believe that one day we can transfer information from our brain to a computer. I'm not saying the conciousness or the soul but the memories and the knowledge that we have gained throughout our lives. So it would be interesting if we can preserve some genius person's brain and when the time comes we can see what did he know and understand. Isn't that amazing?

This is all however, subject to the sharia'. If most of the ulama' says it is haram, then it is so. My personal opinion however, if there is a dire importance, then it is allowed, but if it just for fun and dunya, then it is considered laghaa'.

That's it I think, till another time, Assalamualaikum.

 p/s:this is my first English post, sorry for all the grammatical errors