Artificial Intelligence on Sunni Islam’s Fatwa Issuance in Dubai and Egypt

The research examines the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the issuance and dissemination of fatwas in Sunni Islam today. It offers an overview of the history of fatwas and the radical changes that the discipline has undergone throughout Islamic history.

It then proceeds to examine two case studies of AI employment in issuing a fatwa by two important institutions of Sunni Islam: The Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities Department in Dubai and Al-Azhar Fatwa Global Centre in Cairo. Media presentations and examination of the actual “Virtual Ifta” service are feeding the data for the former and an unstructured interview with two Al-Azhar Fatwa Global Centre employees in Cairo for the latter. The findings demonstrate the competition over religious authority that those two case studies underline and the limitations and dangers of using AI in fatwa issuance. Finally, a survey designed for this research offers insight into the understanding and attitudes of lay Muslims on the matter.

In the late twentieth century, the internet, as a means of disseminating religious knowledge and doctrine, became the latest example of how technology infiltrates and inevitably affects religious experiences, learning and identity (Tsourlaki 2020). At the dawn of the second decade of the twenty-first century, a new technological advancement, that of artificial intelligence (AI), became a tool for authoritative entities in religion to aid them in serving their communities. Although Islam is generally perceived as a tradition-focused religion, where modernity and science are treated with apprehension, if not animosity, reality proves this perception wrong. Since October 2019, AI has been implemented in the issuance of legal opinions (fatwas), which constitute an intrinsic part of the Islamic faith. This decision has been announced by two institutions that belong to the Sunni sect of Islam: The Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities Department in Dubai (IACAD) in October 2019 and Al-Azhar Fatwa Global Centre in Cairo in January 2020.

It should be clarified that there are structural and regulatory differences between Shia and Sunni Islam, in the way fatwas are being issued. Mentioning this detail is imperative in deconstructing the common misunderstanding that the practices of mainstream Sunni Islam are the only practices within Islam, which practically erases Shia Islam from many academic publications. However, a detailed analysis of the differences in the issuing fatwas would be a diversion from the main objective of this research and has therefore been consciously avoided. For this research, the topic has been approached as practiced in Sunni Islam solely because both institutions that constitute this research’s case studies belong to Sunni Islam….

Bibliographic Information

Thesis Title: Artificial Intelligence on Sunni Islam’s Fatwa Issuance in Dubai and Egypt

Author(s): Sofia Tsourlaki

Published in: Islamic Inquiries (2022), 1(2): 107-125.

 Language: English

Length: 19 Pages

Artificial Intelligence on Sunni Islam’s Fatwa Issuance in Dubai and Egypt