The intensive-care and life-support capabilities of modern medicine raise the question of whether treatment should be continued or withheld/withdrawn for critically ill patients. Islamic law discusses both the ruling on seeking treatment and the conditions for forgoing it.
Cases in which treatment no longer offers benefit and merely prolongs the dying process are assessed differently from cases offering reasonable hope of recovery. Patient consent, medical necessity and public interest (maṣlaḥa) are decisive factors.
Assoc. Prof. Tuba Erkoç Baydar addresses this issue in her article "Withholding of Treatment in Islamic Law" and related work, placing classical fiqh concepts in dialogue with contemporary medical ethics.