The Future of Scientific Authority in Islamic Jurisprudence with the Emerence of Artificial Intelligence: Opportunities, Threats, and Jurisprudential Regulation

Abstract

The expansion of artificial intelligence in recent decades has introduced new transformations across numerous fields of knowledge, including Islamic jurisprudence and ijtihād. Scientific authority in Islamic jurisprudence refers to the position of producing, evaluating, and directing juridical knowledge by jurists and scholarly institutions; a position historically founded upon human ijtihād, mastery of religious sources, and the capacity for legal inference. The entry of artificial intelligence systems into the domain of analyzing religious texts, retrieving jurisprudential data, and even generating quasi-fatwā responses raises the question of how the future of scientific authority in Islamic jurisprudence will be influenced by this technology. The principal issue addressed in the present study is the extent to which artificial intelligence can transform the traditional roles of scientific authority in Islamic jurisprudence and what opportunities and threats may emerge in this process. In addition, the study examines what form of jurisprudential and scientific regulation is necessary to preserve the authenticity of ijtihād while simultaneously benefiting from technological capacities. The research method employed in this study is descriptive–analytical with an interdisciplinary approach. Data were collected through library research, analysis of jurisprudential texts, review of scientific literature related to artificial intelligence, and examination of existing experiences in intelligent religious systems. The tools utilized included scientific databases, text-analysis software, language-based artificial intelligence systems, and comparative analysis of jurisprudential viewpoints. The findings demonstrate that artificial intelligence can provide opportunities such as accelerating access to jurisprudential sources, strengthening ijtihād-based research, enabling extensive textual analysis, and enhancing the efficiency of seminary research. Conversely, threats such as the weakening of traditional authority, the possibility of errors in machine-based legal inference, epistemic dependence on algorithms, and the emergence of illegitimate fatwās are also conceivable. The investigation further indicates that the existing literature has paid insufficient attention to establishing a coherent jurisprudential framework for governing the application of artificial intelligence in the fields of fatwā and ijtihād, reflecting a significant research gap. Based on the findings, it is suggested that a framework for the jurisprudential regulation of intelligent technologies be developed, that the supervisory role of jurists over intelligent systems be reinforced, and that artificial intelligence be employed primarily as a supportive instrument for ijtihād rather than as a substitute for it.