من المقاربة الفقهية إلى المقاربة الأخلاقية: الاجتهاد المعاصر والجينوم نموذجًا

The relationship between the two distinct fields of jurisprudence and ethics raises many questions and issues. A further complicating factor is that both jurisprudence and ethics deal with human acts in terms of judging and assessing them, as well as with the sources of this assessment and its rationale. This study argues that jurisprudence alone is no longer adequate to assess modern developments, and that there exists a dire need to move from a legalistic towards an ethical approach in emerging issues. To this end, the article discusses the fatwās, or rulings, on the subject of genomics issued by three institutions: the International Islamic Fiqh Academy, the Islamic Fiqh Academy, and the Islamic Organization for Medical Sciences. A critical analysis of these rulings will be followed by the proposition of a methodology for approaching the genome issue through which an ethical justification is developed that might contribute to coping with modern developments and their complexities. The ethical approach proposed here combines next to other pivotal concepts, the concepts of ethics and religion, in the form of meta-ethics on a theoretical level, and on a practical level it monitors the actual debates on the nature of acts that are good or ethically justified. This article starts with an introduction on genetics and genetic intervention, then provides a systematic summary of contemporary ijtihād on the genome and provides a critical analytical reading of the rulings and decisions, while clarifying its methodological approaches and justifications. Subsequently, an ethical approach is proposed for the genome that explains how to rebuild an ethical position with regard to the genome comprising the required justification. Because of the ambiguity of the concept of ethics in the field of Islamic Studies on the one hand, and because it forms the theoretical and conceptual framework for the approach proposed here on the other hand, this study elaborates on the clarification of the concept and its dimensions, so that it can be used to build on at a later stage. This will be helpful in gaining a better understanding of the difference between jurisprudence and ethics.