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One of the characteristics of our human life is constant and continuous renewal. Almost every day there is something new, whether in human life, or in the sciences and discoveries that humans produce, and many of these discoveries are intertwined with people’s questions, and the position of Sharia on these discoveries, and with what is new in people’s lives. People have known what is known as: artificial intelligence, and the question has begun about the extent of reliance on artificial intelligence in the religious field, especially in the field of fatwas.
Several days ago, a rumor circulated that the Egyptian Ministry of Endowments would adopt artificial intelligence in Friday sermons, which prompted the Council of Ministers to issue a refutation of this rumour, stating that there is no intention to do so, and that preachers and imams will remain at work.
Also, other news reported that the State of Iran is examining the use of artificial intelligence to issue fatwas, quoting the Guardian newspaper, that a number of Iranian officials are looking forward to using artificial intelligence techniques, in order to work on issuing fatwas, to speed up all matters related to the provisions of Sharia, according to What the source mentioned, and was reported by several news outlets.
In 2019, the UAE adopted the use of artificial intelligence by launching the Emirate of Dubai, an electronic fatwa platform based on it, to answer religious questions without the need for humans.
Our discussion here of artificial intelligence and fatwas is not intended to state the position of jurisprudence on artificial intelligence. Rather, the discussion here is about: Will artificial intelligence enter the field of fatwas, and how accurate and correct is what it will produce? Is it suitable for specific spaces only, or is it suitable for everyone? Or is it not suitable for any field of fatwa at all?
What is said about the science of hadith, although its appearance suggests to people that it is a science that depends on memorization, but it also depends on the scientific ability to criticize texts, is also said to a greater and more general degree about jurisprudence and fatwa. Jurisprudence and fatwa are not memorizing texts, but rather fatwa passes through stages for the jurist, so he imagines the issue. First, he adapts this issue, then sees whether his adaptation puts it in words and texts said by the predecessors, or is it a different issue
Artificial intelligence and its accuracy
First, we are talking about artificial intelligence at this current stage, which comes in the context of its early years, and we are not talking about what is coming, and we do not know what it is or its capabilities. The talk about artificial intelligence is as it is now, and if it remains in this state, as it is characterized by several things. A note on it, the most important of which is: bias. Through the experiences of those dealing with it, especially in light of the current events in Gaza, for example, some noticed that when asking the artificial intelligence what the Zionist entity is doing, its answer was not with the same strength and decisiveness when it talked about what is happening in Ukraine, so consider what is happening. It is a war crime, while remaining silent or evading the answer to what Israel is doing.
Whatever is said about politics, religion will not depart from it, as the Islamic religion - specifically - engages with most ancient and modern issues, and what is happening in people’s lives, public and private, and many rely on the legal opinion regarding it, or the fatwa related to it, which warns of a lack of neutrality. In this field as well, whether at the systems level, or at other levels.
More means of memorization than creativity and understanding
This is one aspect, and on the other hand, the fatwa and some Islamic studies have specificity, in terms of inferring them and dealing with them. Before the computer was invented, it saved people the effort of physical and time research, but it remained limited in certain contexts, which are The context of creativity and the sciences that depend, in important areas, on the human mind and the accuracy of its contemplation and work.
They had previously given the computer the title: (the preserver of our time), which was a title given by our late professor, Dr. Abdel-Azim Al-Deeb, and it was an accurate expression, in terms of its general meaning, as it is a preserver in the sense of memorization, or a modern memorizer in terms of transmitting texts with their chains of transmission, but until now no We see that the computer itself is capable of correcting and weakening hadiths, despite the presence of complete scientific materials related to hadith work on it. Rather, it is merely a transmitter of the sayings of scholars specialized in studying the chains of transmission and narrators.
Because the science of hadith, for example, does not rely solely on the chain of transmission for authentication or weakening, but rather it depends on the text. The chain of transmission may be authentic and free from criticism, but the text may contain defects or anomalies, and this is an issue that depends on the sense and mentality of the hadith narrator, who is familiar with the universals of Islam and its general texts. And specific to the topic.
Therefore, we find scholars in the past and present criticizing prophetic hadiths that were authentic in terms of the chain of transmission, but in terms of the text they were not free from criticism, even though their appearance suggests authenticity. This is a skill that is not acquired by any student of knowledge, nor by any hadith scholar who is concerned with criticizing the chain of transmission only. Rather, it is a skill that is acquired by His long care and knowledge, as indicated by Imam Ibn al-Qayyim in the introduction to his book: (Al-Manar Al-Munif).
Warnings of relying on artificial intelligence
What is said about the science of hadith, although its appearance suggests to people that it is a science that depends on memorization, but it also depends on the scientific ability to criticize texts, is also said to a greater and more general degree about jurisprudence and fatwa. Jurisprudence and fatwa are not memorizing texts, but rather fatwa passes through stages for the jurist, so he imagines the issue. First, then he adapts this issue, then considers whether adapting it and placing it in words and texts said by the predecessors, or is it a different issue?
If it is a new issue, he tries as much as possible to adapt it correctly under the generalities of Sharia law and its texts specific to the topic, or close to it, and then after that he comes out with the appropriate jurisprudential opinion, which is what jurists call: the jurisprudential faculty.
It is an issue related to the mentality of a person studying Sharia and jurisprudence. Some people may have found what they are looking for in artificial intelligence in old and recurring issues that do not represent a problem. However, these recurring issues are not devoid of privacy for each questioner.
We are talking about a fatwa and not about the legal ruling established in jurisprudence books, and therefore the late Dr. Muhammad Kamal Imam divided jurisprudence into two types: The first:
The settled jurisprudence, which is the settled jurisprudential books in the schools of jurisprudence.
The second: mobile jurisprudence, which is the fatwas that people ask, so the jurist goes to answer and searches the doctrines, or the doctrine followed by him, by looking at its origins and texts, and answers this question specific to a specific case, and he called it mobile; Because it is neither static nor fixed, but rather constantly moving based on the movement of life, and the movement and diversity of the questions directed to the jurist.
For example: Among the legal permissions in which a person moves from one state to another: necessity, need, or illness, and these states change and differ from one person to another, according to the capabilities of each person compared to others, so the necessity of those in America is different from those in Egypt, and the necessity of the rich is not the poor. And each layer is different from another, so how is necessity adapted here? If the answer were the same, people would be fed up with that, and this would be contrary to the goal of Sharia law and its philosophy of making necessity an important entry point to make things easier for people, each according to their situation.
What is said about necessity is said about illness, and if every time in which pain and illness differs from another, according to the progress of science and medicine, then what is said about one patient or illness cannot be said about another, if they were in the same time, and medicine is making new progress every day.
If we blame some muftis for not realizing these differences, even though they are human beings who look and see, but they imitate and are afraid to apply their minds and eyes to matters of jurisprudence, then what about artificial intelligence, which in most cases only produces the outcome of the information that is included in it?
We are not against benefiting from the achievements of the human mind, but we must not get carried away by them in areas that may be correct in some areas and not in others, especially since the matter relates to people’s religion and the afterlife.
If the human mufti suffers from shortcomings and poor understanding of some issues and fatwas, then this is more common than modern means and techniques. We have noticed this in the fields of research, in comparing human work and computer work, as an example of the indexed dictionary of the words of the Holy Qur’an. You would sometimes find places in The book of Muhammad Fouad Abdel Baqi, and you will not find it in encyclopedias placed on CDs, or when searching with a search engine. What would we care if the search was related to meanings and not words, which is a broader field that only the mentality of an experienced scholar can handle.
To this day, people still ask a legal question on fatwa websites, and the website refers him electronically to a specific answer, so the questioner insists on sending his question, because he sees a certain peculiarity, or a specific difference in his question that separates him from the other answers, and the issue is related to his worship, or treatment of him, Or what is permissible and what is forbidden and investigating it, or divorce and marriage, even though the previous answer is the answer of a mufti or scholar to a question close to his question, but he needs to remove doubt from himself, because it is the answer related to his question and his situation.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.