Ethics is one of the main pillars of a nation's renaissance and a major constituent of its civilization. Thus, Allah sent Messengers and Prophets to guide people and rectify their ethics. Islam was the last Divine Message to be described by Allah Almighty as follows, "We sent thee not, but as mercy for all creatures." The Holy Prophet described his honorable message in these words, "I was not sent but to perfect the best of morality." Allah addressed the Holy Prophet saying, "And thou (standest) on an exalted standard of character." As such, morality is a necessity for life by virtue of which justice prevails and people enjoy equality; for no Arab has a privilege over non-Arab but through piety and good deeds. Morality is not confined to a certain manner or to relationships in a specified area. It is rather a general behavior to which all people should adhere.

Given that good morality discharges a major role in the public life, health also occupies an important status in moral commitment. By moral commitment here I mean truthfulness, honesty, integrity, altruism, the prevalence of justice and charity as well as the observation of man's freedom as a human being. Moral commitment also denotes being keen on virtue, abstaining from propagating promiscuity as well as heeding individual privacy and keeping secrets and not exposing them. Moral commitment also means respecting man's dignity which is mentioned by Allah, Exalted be He, in the Holy Qur'an, "We have honoured the sons of Adam; provided them with transport on land and sea; given them for sustenance things good and pure; and conferred on them special favours, above a great

part of Our Creation." (Al Isra': 70). Moral commitment encompasses besides all this the values mentioned in the Holy Qur'an, the honorable Prophetic Tradition, the deeds of the Rational Caliphs as well as the scholars of the Muslim nation.

These were but some of the measures, notions and values to which the IOMS has been committed on discussing any of the topics proposed for study in an attempt to give an introduction on the Islamic foundations in the area of ethics. But the question is why the interest in health? The answer involves numerous reasons, some of which can be summed up as follows:

This is the specialization of the IOMS. Health care aims at consolidating health if it exists and taking care of it. Of its goals is the prevention against falling prey in the claws of disease as well as providing care during the time of disease. The patient is a person in bad need of someone to stretch a helping hand to him to revive hope and alleviate his pains. It even goes far beyond that, malpractices started to surface. Financial matters between patient and physicians or between pharmaceutical companies and health care professionals occupied a prominent place in the daily practices. Wrong prescriptions also began to emerge as well as the blind pursuit of all new developments without considering their consequences though there might be no significant difference between them and the traditional

methods.

Money wields a mighty influence in terms of corruption and corrupting, especially for vulnerable people. We cannot possibly ask all those health care professionals to be angels. Corruption in health care has not become a phenomenon yet. But it can turn into one unless honest people, who cling to ethics, confront it by punishing the corrupt members and cleanse the health care system of them so as to regain the trust of patients and their love.

Moreover, the last two decades have witnessed wide leaps of development in the field of biomedicine starting from in-vitro babies, stem cells, through organ implantation, the medical definition of death, genetic engineering and human genome. All these new developments should have been subjected to ethical studies to define the degree of permissibility and impermissibility in light of man's dignity, privacy, capability or incapability of decision-making especially that eastern and western ethicists studied these developments from an ethical prospective. They declared some of them to be permissible and others to be forbidden. However, Islam and Muslims have their own peculiarities, customs and traditions that should be derived from the Islamic Jurisprudence. Hence comes the importance of the ethical aspect of health care; the aspect which the IOMS called for heeding in addressing all the new developments emerging worldwide.

I Beseech Allah that we could attain success in all the tasks we shouldered!