S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 6 - 2 Fa l l 2 0 2 0 3 5 Monika Zaviš Another example is the divergence of opinions among countries from the EMRO [3], and countries from OIC [4] as to the United Nations Declaration on Human Cloning, which is a resolution adopted by the General Assembly in March 2005, as presented by Abdur Raba Khayat. While Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar, Morocco and United Arab Emirates (all EMRO) voted in favor of this resolution as well as Albania, Benin, Guyana, Suriname and Uzbekistan (all OIC); Gabon (OIC) was against; Maldives and Turkey (both OIC) as well as Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria (all EMRO), abstained. Several OIC countries were absent, among them also Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Senegal and Turkmenistan (Abdur Rab and Khayat 2006, 29–37). 3.3 Diseases Related to Reproductive Health as God’s Punishment While in the past there was a common explanation on tran - sreligious level, that diseases are God’s punishment, today are religious scholars and authorities giving an accent on prevention and possibilities resulting from synergy of faith and science, that is concordist approach . From the spiritual and psychological point of view, we welcome this relief of so overall troubled infertile patients. This step reached by new theological interpretation brings the believers the feeling and the certitude of God’s mercy, help and presence in all their pain without a judgement. When we compare our find - ings from in-depth interviews done among Muslim believers in October 2018 in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in May 2019 in Slovakia, we see, that Bosnian believers are much more open to this new interpretation overcoming the paradigm of the God’s punishment, while Slovak believers are more con - servative and still hanging to the previous model. Bosnian believers are also more prone to use different alternative health treatments, while Slovak believers have proved, that their admissibility requirements for particular methods are even stricter than those of religious authorities of their madhhab . Based on this new interpretation in sense of concordist approach, selected assisted reproductive technologies are offi - cially welcome and in the question of prevention of genetic diseases, premarital testing is in many Islamic countries like Syria, Morocco, Tunisia (Fattoum 2006, 687–696), Saudi Ara - bia (Al Sulaiman, Suliman, Al Mishari, Al Sawadi, and Owaidah 2008, 531–538), etc. a legal obligation. The tests are related to SCA (sickle cell anaemia), thalassemia and deficiency of G6PD ( Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenasedeficiency, x-related genetic disease) (El-Hazmi, Al-Hazmi and Warsy 2011, 597–610). Incidence of both SCA and thalassemia have been in this manner reduced. Instead of emphasis of God’s pun - ishment seen in these diseases, doctors call to responsible parenthood. 4 Conclusion Studying spirituality in religious experience of Muslim spouses fighting infertility is quite complex task. We have faced several methodological problems that were described, explained and systematized in form of four major principal problems including the question of conception of the phrase religious experience in the Western psychological-religious research and in Islamic studies; novelty and uniqueness of our topic of interconnectedness of religious experience of respective individuals and their efforts to overcome infertility; necessity of analysis always in respect to particular country, its customs, legalities and human rights of women; and differences in real chances of fulfilling religious obligations by men and women regarding respect towards ritual purity. Afterwards we have approached to depicting the background of our research topic, which is religious teaching on marriage and progeny in Islam. Using concrete examples of diversity of approaches to religious issues that infertile Muslim couple obeying religious guidance of scriptures and authorities has to consider, we have refuted the opinion on simplicity of religious regulations in Islam. By the same we have also demonstrated that position of believing infertile couples is even more demanding, difficult and challenging, what forms and defines their relation to God, i.e. spirituality and religious experience as such. We have considered also the shift of the interpretation of reproductive health problems from conception of God’s punishment to encouragement to think on prevention and use all the possibilities provided by modern medicine that are applied in concordance with faith. Based on our in-depth interviews among Muslim believers living in Bosnia and Herzegovina in comparison to those living in Slovakia, we could conclude, that Slovak believers are much more conservative in their praxis and theoretically hardly leaving old interpretations.
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