Ali v. Vohra
Case Snapshot
Muslim physicians have been healing the sick and advancing medicine for over a thousand years. Today, Muslim doctors across Illinois continue that legacy, guided by their belief that life is a blessing granted by Allah and by the Qur’an’s teaching that “whoever saves a life, it will be as if they saved all of humanity.” But now Illinois is threatening Muslim doctors with significant fines and penalties unless they help patients obtain lethal suicide drugs—forcing them to violate their faith or help patients kill themselves.
Status
On September 16, 2026, Becket filed a federal lawsuit challenging Illinois’ assisted-suicide law on behalf of Dr. Akbar Ali, Dr. Asim Babar, Dr. Omar Hussain, and Dr. Umar Shakur—four Muslim doctors who seek to heal their patients, not help them kill themselves. These doctors are asking the court to stop Illinois from conscripting them into its assisted-suicide regime, and from punishing them for offering life-affirming care.
Share this Case
Case Summary
A thousand-year tradition of healing
The Islamic medical tradition goes back over one thousand years. Between the eighth and fifteenth centuries, Muslim societies supported one of the most sophisticated medical traditions in the world. During this time, Muslim physicians and scholars made significant contributions to medical knowledge that helped shape the development of modern medicine. Muslim physician Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Razi was the first person to distinguish measles from smallpox, while Ibn Sina established a school of medicine combining both physical and psychological well-being. The Islamic medical tradition is also responsible for the use of alcohol as an antiseptic.
That tradition of healing and medical excellence continues to this day in Illinois. Inspired by their Muslim faith, physicians like Dr. Akbar Ali, Dr. Asim Babar, Dr. Omar Hussain, and Dr. Umar Shakur strive to serve their neighbors in need. Each regularly sees patients facing crises, life-changing diagnoses, and terrifying uncertainty. In these moments, they seek to heal their patients and treat them with the utmost dignity and compassion so that they do not fall into despair. They took an oath to heal—and they have a religious commitment to see their patients through until natural death.
Illinois tries to conscript Muslim doctors into its regime of death
In 2026, Illinois passed its End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act (EOLOA), allowing terminally ill adults to obtain lethal drugs to end their lives. Yet the law does not merely permit assisted suicide: it forces objecting doctors into its machinery. Religious doctors who object to participating in assisted suicide must still inform patients about their “right” to kill themselves, help them qualify for lethal drugs, and pass them along to someone willing to help them obtain those drugs. In other words, Illinois makes them punch their patient’s ticket to death even when doing so violates their faith.
Illinois also imposes a gag order on doctors who want to speak a life-affirming message against suicide. EOLOA’s definition of coercion and undue influence is so broad that it risks punishing these doctors simply for telling their terminally ill patients: “Don’t kill yourself. God has a plan for you. Your life is worth living.”
Muslims are forbidden from prescribing life-ending drugs, directing patients to obtain them, or helping facilitate a patient’s suicide in any way. Islam teaches that life is a blessing from Allah and rejects the view that people suffering from illnesses—even terminal illness—are less valuable. Instead, Muslims believe lives of the gravely ill retain beauty, value, and goodness. Because suicide is prohibited, facilitating or assisting in it is also forbidden. Rather than aiding in a terminally-ill patient’s death, Muslims have a responsibility to provide them with care and comfort. In this tradition, compassion is accompaniment, not suicide.
Muslim doctors fight for their freedom to care
With Becket’s help, Dr. Ali, Dr. Babar, Dr. Hussain, and Dr. Shakur filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block Illinois’ assisted-suicide law. The lawsuit asks the court to protect their freedom to continue caring for patients in accordance with their Muslim faith. It also seeks to protect patients who want the freedom to choose doctors who will not offer them suicide. The lawsuit came just weeks after Becket filed a separate challenge to the assisted suicide mandate on behalf of Catholic healthcare providers in Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm v. Prince. There, Becket won a court order barring Illinois from enforcing the mandate against those providers.
Illinois’ actions violate core constitutional protections for religious freedom and freedom of speech. The government cannot force Muslim doctors to violate their faith by helping patients obtain suicide pills. Nor can it gag them from offering life-affirming counsel and force them instead to deliver the state’s preferred message about suicide. Federal law further protects these doctors by banning the use of federal health care funds for assisted suicide and by forbidding Illinois from discriminating against those who—like Dr. Ali, Dr. Babar, Dr. Hussain, and Dr. Shakur—refuse to participate in assisted suicide.
Importance to Religious Liberty:
- Individual freedom: Religious individuals and organizations are free to follow their faith in all aspects of their lives, including in the workplace and not just in houses of worship.
- Religious communities: Religious communities have the right to organize and operate according to their beliefs without the government discriminating among sincere religious beliefs.