Withholding a diagnosis from a patient for his own good

A question on a doctor withholding the truth of an illness from a patient for his own good, which Egypt's Dar al-Ifta permitted within limits. ¹

The questioner said his sister's husband has cancer, and that when the patient asked the doctor about his condition, the doctor did not tell him plainly. ¹ The doctor told the questioner instead, explaining that the patient's condition would decline quickly if he learned the truth. ¹

Dar al-Ifta answered that the basic rule is for the doctor to tell the patient the truth of his illness. ¹ It held that where the doctor judges from experience that disclosure would bring a serious physical or psychological decline, he may withhold it, and that this is not blameworthy concealment but permitted indirection to the extent needed. ¹ Its conditions were that only the patient is kept uninformed, that the relatives who need to know are told so that his religious and worldly rights are protected, and that this stays within what necessity requires and harms no one else. ¹

Egypt's Dar al-Ifta published this fatwa on its site as no. 8977, dated 13 May 2026, in its medicine category, among the fatwas of Grand Mufti Nazir Ayyad. ¹ The museum records this answer as a historical text attributed to its author; it issues no ruling of its own.