Sunnism constitutes eighty percent of the Islamic world. The most academic and renowned religious seminary in the Sunni world is Al-Azhar University in Egypt, and it is from here that most verdicts on novel issues such as human cloning are decreed and disseminated throughout the Islamic and non-Islamic worlds. The perspective of this seminary and of other significant Sunni jurisprudential councils and figures are alluded to throughout this essay. I lay out the method of legal derivation employed by the Sunni (...) clergy and scholars and then illustrate how they have arrived at their prohibition on human cloning. I demonstrate weaknesses of methodology employed by the major Sunni Muftis within the domain of jurisprudence. (shrink)

Personhood constitutes the pivotal point in the abortion debate. There exists a diversity of views as to when foetal personhood actually starts—from conception and implantation to viability and even birth. One perspective that has lost support for decades is that of quickening, a stance associated with Lord Ellenborough’s 1803 Act. This paper attempts to put quickening back into the limelight, albeit through a new interpretation. After discussing its philosophy and underpinning rationale, I will assess a number of arguments that have (...) been directed against quickening as a viable point of distinction. I conclude by suggesting that according to modern proponents of quickening proponents, rational soul ensoulment begins after a certain degree of cerebral cortical formation has been realized, thus marking foetal volition, which promotes foetal interests, for the first time. (shrink)