genome editing SPRING 2019 45 Religious scholars take a generally favorable position toward human genome editing research, and Gulf countries have launched several scientifc efforts on the topic. MOHAMMED GHALY Islamic Ethical Perspectives on Human Genome Editing T he interest in exploring the interplay of genomics and Islamic ethics took an important turn at the beginning of the 1990s, when the international Human Genome Project was declared. Since then, both Muslim religious scholars and biomedical scientists have been examining the relevant ethical questions from an Islamic perspective in addition to providing recommendations for policy-making pertinent to biomedical and genetic research in the Muslim world. In the secular bioethical discourse, which dominates the discipline of bioethics in the West, there is a distinct class of bioethicists who lead the discussions. However, the Islamic bioethical discourse is framed by the class of Muslim religious scholars ( ulama) who are specialists in the Islamic religious sciences. Te positions adopted by these scholars are usually premised on the two main Islamic scriptures, namely the Quran (the literal word of God) and the Sunna (sayings, deeds, and approvals attributed to the Prophet of Islam). Because of the complexity and multidimensional character of the ethical questions raised by the feld of genomics, Muslim religious scholars, most of whom received no training in biomedical sciences or in languages other than Arabic, sought the help of biomedical scientists to understand the biomedical aspects of the questions at hand and to gain access to the literature published in non-Arabic languages, especially English. Tis SPECIAL SECTION