WASHINGTON, May 18 (IslamOnline) - Despite strong objections from the parents of a four-month-old Muslim boy, an autopsy was performed on the child in Atlantic City, New Jersey on Thursday.
The parents of Muhammad Tahir Ali, who died on Tuesday at Atlantic City Medical Center, said that the autopsy goes against their religious beliefs.
Sabrina Devine and Musa Ali, parents of the dead child, had refused to allow the procedure arguing that it is prohibited in their religion, which requires that a body be buried within 72 hours of death.
The authorities did not concede to the parents' objections and proceeded with the autopsy saying that the child's death was suspicious.
The matter was taken up in a local Superior Court on Wednesday where medical experts testified that there was enough evidence to suggest that the child could have been suffocated or abused.
Judge George Seltzer said that he has no reason to believe that the Muslim parents had acted improperly, but ruled that the autopsy should proceed since there were unanswered questions surrounding Muhammad Tahir Ali's death.
According to the authorities, Devine, in her account of the death of the child, said that she breastfed him on Tuesday and placed him between her legs to prevent him from falling off from the sofa. She thereby fell asleep and after few hours, when she woke up, discovered that the child was not breathing.
Prosecutor Murray Talasnik said that the two and a half hour autopsy procedure revealed no signs of traumatic injury but that the cause of death was still to be determined. He said the possibility of charges against the parents would be entertained only after a review of toxicology tests and that of a pediatric pathologist.
Muhammad Tahir Ali's body was released to the family for burial after the autopsy procedure.
Most Islamic scholars allow an autopsy when there is reasonable suspicion surrounding the death of a person. A tiny minority does not approve of such operations, basing their view on a saying of the Holy Prophet (SAW) in which he said, "breaking the bone of a dead person is like breaking the bone of a living person".
