Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta has ruled that relying on artificial intelligence applications to interpret the Holy Quran is not permissible, stressing that such practices are “religiously prohibited.”
In a statement published on its official website, Dar al-Ifta said that full reliance on AI systems, including applications such as ChatGPT and similar tools, for Quranic interpretation violates established principles of tafsir and undermines the obligation to protect the Quran from speculation, conjecture, or attributing interpretations that are not reliably grounded in recognized scholarship.
The institution explained that using artificial intelligence for interpreting the Quran carries serious religious and methodological risks, most notably the lack of clear and verifiable sources and the inability to confirm the accuracy of the information produced. It noted that AI systems do not originate from qualified religious scholars and do not adhere to a defined scholarly methodology in Quranic exegesis.
Dar al-Ifta added that such systems rely on automated processing of content drawn from diverse sources, languages, and approaches, which may include distorted material or views attributed to unqualified individuals, making reliance on them a risk to the proper understanding of Quranic texts.
The statement urged Muslims to refer to established and authoritative Quranic commentaries or to consult qualified scholars and recognized religious institutions when seeking to understand the meanings of the Quran, in order to preserve accuracy and safeguard the integrity of the holy text.
