CAIRO, December 11 (IslamOnline.net) - The eighth conference of the Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences (IOMS), which opened here on Saturday, December 11, will moot, and likely endorse, the first Islamic code for medical and health ethics.

IOMS Assistant Secretary General Ahmed Ragaai El-Gindy said the conference sends a clear message to the world that Islam can have major contributions not only in the field of science but also with respect to medical ethics.

He told IslamOnline.net the four-day conference will recommend teaching the proposed code in faculties of medicine across the Muslim world.

It will also recommend that health ministries and medical syndicates in Muslim countries adopt the code as the statute of medical ethics.

The code idea dates back to 1981 when the IOMS took the initiative of adopting the Islamic Document for Medical Ethics in a Kuwait conference “to keep human knowledge on the proper track prescribed by God as He declared Man as His viceroy on this planet.”

The document was endorsed by many medical organizations observing medical ethics.

The conference is organized by IOMS in cooperation with the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS), Ajman University Network and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

A cohort of distinguished scientists from across the globe in addition to prominent Muslim scholars, including Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, is expected to attend the conference.

It also addresses the relations between physicians, on the one hand, and society and the patients, on the other, from an Islamic perspective.