{EOP}The Qur'an warns about cloning, now scientifically verified

A Book which is beyond perfection in this world was revealed to the human race by Allah with a number of hidden miracles in it. The Qur'an has guided people around the world in all walks of life providing solutions to all problems faced by us not only in the past but also today and certainly in the future too. It is a Book designed for all generations since it refers to political, social, military, scientific and financial aspects. One of the magnificent miracles includes the mentioning of cloning in the Qur'an in Surah an-Nisa, 119.

[Satan said:] “I will lead them astray and fill them with false hopes. I will command them and they will cut off cattle’s ears. I will command them and they will change Allah’s creation.” Anyone who takes satan as his protector in place of Allah has clearly lost everything.” (Surah an-Nisa’, 119)

A report by the German Federal Agricultural Research Center provides the following information:

1. The tissue collection phase is short and simple. Once an animal has been located and restrained, a tissue sample like an ear clipping can be collected within seconds. Furthermore, somatic cells can be collected from all species. For cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, camelids and llamas, a unified and identical procedure can be used by obtaining a tissue sample from the ear using notches which are also used for setting earmarks… Clearly, for all species lymphocytes could be used, but somatic cells from ear clippings will be much easier to obtain and are therefore preferable.
2. According to a report by Reuters dated 1 May, 2002, a research veterinarian at the University of Sao Paolo in Brazil, Jose Visintin, produced cloned embryos for the first time in the country by using cells taken from the ear of an adult cow.
3. According to a BBC report, South Korean scientists cloned a dog called Snuppy from cells taken from a 3-year-old Afghan hound. Researchers at the Seoul National University extracted genetic material from the cells taken from the ear and placed it into an empty egg cell. An embryo was then obtained by stimulating the cell to divide.
4. Another BBC report said that a new clone had been produced using ear cells from an adult cow in research carried out by Dr. Jean-Paul Renard et al. at the Institute National de la Recherché Agronomique in France.
5. According to information of the official Human Genome Project website, in February 2002, scientists from the Advanced Cell Technologies (ACT) biotechnology company carried out experiments on cloning a cow embryo using the skin cell of the donor cow’s ear.
6. A report by Associated Press, dated 24 January, 2000, announced that Japanese scientists had cloned the clone of a bull for the first time. In the re-cloning, skin tissue samples from the first generation cloned bull’s ear were taken when it was four months old. These cells were then fused with an unfertilized egg from which the nucleus had been removed.

Information from the Human Genome Project website take this form:

Dolly, the first mammal to be cloned from adult DNA, [died on] Feb. 14, 2003. Prior to her death, Dolly had been suffering from lung cancer and crippling arthritis. More than 90% of cloning attempts fail to produce viable offspring. In addition to low success rates, cloned animals tend to have more compromised immune function and higher rates of infection, tumor growth, and other disorders. Japanese studies have shown that cloned mice live in poor health and die early. Appearing healthy at a young age unfortunately is not a good indicator of long term survival. Clones have been known to die mysteriously. For example, Australia's first cloned sheep appeared healthy and energetic on the day she died, and the results from her autopsy failed to determine a cause of death.

The way that changes in the creation of living things are referred to in the Qur’an and the expression “cutting off cattle’s ears”, at a time when no branches of science such as genetics or embryology existed, shows that the Qur’an has come down from the Sight of our Lord, Allah, Who is unfettered by time. We are also told at the end of the verse that these people will be disappointed when they alter what Allah has created. The verse may therefore be indicating that cloning will give rise to various problems for human beings. (Allah knows the truth.) Indeed, statements from the Genetic Science Learning Center of the University of Utah provide the following information:

When we hear of cloning successes, we learn about only the few attempts that worked. What we don't see are the many, many cloning experiments that failed! And even in the successful clones, problems tend to arise later, during the animal's development to adulthood.

Links to the above mentioned reports :

1. http://www.fao.org/docrep/008/a0070t/a0070t05.htm
2. http://ngin.tripod.com/010502b.htm
3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4742453.stm
4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/331793.stm
5. http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/cloning.shtml
6. http://www.gene.ch/info4action/2000/Jan/msg00061.html