شریعتِ اسلامیہ کے بنیادی ماخذ اور مقاصد الشریعۃ کی روشنی میں تحسینِ انسانی بذریعہ جینیاتی تغیرات کی مشروعیت

The Permissibility of Human Enhancement through Genetic Modifications: An Analysis in Light of the Primary Sources of Islamic Law and Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah

Abstract

The discovery of DNA's double-helix structure in 1953, the foundational experiments in genetic engineering during the 1970s, the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003, and the subsequent emergence of CRISPR-Cas9 technology have collectively precipitated a paradigm shift in biomedical science. These advancements have rendered genetic modification not merely possible but increasingly accessible, thereby transforming what was once an exclusively scientific question into a matter of profound ethical, philosophical, and religious deliberation. As genetic interventions extend beyond therapeutic applications toward the enhancement of human intelligence, physical capacities, and heritable traits, Islamic jurisprudence is confronted with questions of considerable urgency: Are such modifications permissible? Under what conditions? And where do they transgress into the prohibited? This study examines these questions through a systematic engagement with the primary sources of Islamic law, the Qurʿān, Sunnah, Ijmāʿ, and Qiyās, alongside the framework of Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah, with particular attention to the five essential objectives. The research addresses a significant lacuna in contemporary fiqh literature, wherein existing scholarship remains largely fragmented, partial, or confined to therapeutic dimensions, leaving the broader question of human enhancement without adequate jurisprudential treatment. The study concludes that Islamic law draws a fundamental distinction between therapeutic and enhancement-oriented genetic interventions. Therapeutic gene therapy, aimed at restoring the normative condition of human nature and preventing heritable disease, finds jurisprudential support under the principles of dafʿ al-ḍarar (removal of harm) and jalb al-manfaʿah (procurement of benefit), provided that the integrity of human progeny is safeguarded. Enhancement modifications, however, which seek to transcend, rather than restore, the divinely established human standard (fiṭrah), are deemed impermissible. Such interventions constitute taghyīr khalq Allāh (alteration of God's creation) in its prohibited sense, and their long-term implications for genetic diversity and humanity's natural resilience cannot be reliably assessed by human reason alone. Accordingly, the jurisprudential weight of evidence does not permit their authorisation in the absence of explicit scriptural sanction.