Two of Egypt's top Islamic clerics withdrew opposition to the practice of organ transplants, but stressed they be carried out only under certain conditions.
"It is permissible to transfer organs from a dead person to a living person on condition that the deceased left a will to that effect," the official MENA agency quoted the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Mohammed Said Tantawi, as telling participants at a conference on transplants.
In cases where there is no will, Sheikh Tantawi, head of Sunni Islam's most prestigious institution, left it up to doctors to use their best judgment to decide what to do.
Islam calls for the protection of human life and health, said Egypt's state theologian or mufti, Ali Gomaa, adding that in line with this, the religion endorsed use of medication to treat patients.
This includes "transfer of organs according to religious and scientific regulations without infringing on the rights of others," he explained.
Egypt's conservative religious establishment has long opposed, as a matter of principle, the practice of organ transplants, including the removal of organs from the dead.
Scientists, angered by the clerics concern for the sanctity of the dead over the quality of life of the living, urged parliament to pass legislation approving and regulating the practice.
Debate on the issue stalled over the definition of death and the conditions under which the living may donate organs to those in need, creating a legal grey area in which a black market for organ has developed in Egypt.
The clerics did not state their position with regards to donations between the living, but the doctors' union has approved measures that allow for donation of organs from the living to first-degree relatives.
The union agrees many have exploited this and point to an incident that involved a donation between an Egyptian man and a Syrian woman after he produced a marriage certificate.
It turned out the woman had paid the man money so they could get married and have the transplant. They divorced a few days later and she returned to Syria.