Former Iranian president: Islam does not bar organ transplant

Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told a Seminar in Tehran Sunday that Islam sees no problem with organ transplant, KUNA reported.

Addressing the one-day Seminar entitled "brain death and organ transplant," Rafsanjani, himself a clergyman of distinguished standing, suggested that even the late founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, found no problem with the organ transplant.

"The religious decree on this issue was issued during the life of Imam Khomeini, and today the supreme leader of the revolution (Ayatolah Ali Khamenei) and a number of distinguished religious scholars approve of it," Rafsanjani told an audience of medical and legal experts here.

"From a religious standpoint, we do not have any problem (with organ transplant)," Rafsanjani said, noting that Iranians for the most part were willing to donate their kidney more than any other body organs.

Rafsanjani's daughter, Fatemeh Hashemi, heads Iranian foundation for special diseases, quoted last week Hashemi as saying that the country's first organ Bank was established.