Reflections on Mohammed Gamal Abdelnour on "Artificial Intelligence and the Islamic Theology of Technology: From “Means” to “Meanings” and from “Minds” to “Hearts”"

 

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In a recent post I considered briefly the quite powerful insights of Tugrul Keskin in “Algorithmic Ummah: Turkey’s AI Ambitions and the Neoliberal Pan-Islamist Reconfiguration of the Global South,” Presentaiton at the Conference "AI and International Relations: Perspectives from the Global South and Muslim World," (FIU, 4 December 2025). There the object was to begin to understand the hugely important magma flow of ambition, desire, and its operationalization around the construction and utilization of virtual spaces to the ends of reshaping (and controlling) the cognitive universe of physical things (and the people whoa re both its objects and its vessels). 

But all realms, including virtual realms, that are both a projection of the human and a means of externalizing the collective human for reinsertion into people, and form people, into the communities they would now feel "naturally" follow from this dialectic--all human realms--require a theology. Theology here is understood in its classical Greek sense of a rationalizing discourse on the gods. This is not God-speak, but rather humans speaking from within the cognitive cage in which, it is assumed, the divine (external) force/presence/thing/person has placed human--and humanity. It is Janus faced in the sense of rationalizing the necessary exteriorization of the rationalizing forces of cognition (the making and ordering of things including the world in which humans find themselves) and then the ordering of humans and human collectivity as a consequences of that ordering and placement (Cf., Paul Tillich, "Systematic Theology," 195). 

That theology is particularly ironic where it represents the expression of humanity outside of itself--like a divine force--which can then, from its exterior position--assume an autonomous and superior role in shaping the lebenswelt that passes for the entirety of human cognitive space. It is even more interesting, and ironic, when that divine space, that human divinity, is then shaped, in turn, or merged with, other exteriorizations, in this case religions that are grounded on an assumption of a presence that is both (1) not human; (2) a creator of the human and of humanity; and (3) a shepherd with a specific interest in managing the human flock through texts and periodic demonstration of power that can be manifested only by those who exist beyond the laws and the cognitive cages into which humanity has been placed. And for all of this, on the human plane at least, one requires a θεολόγος (theologis), one who speaks of--and for-God). That is one needs theos (θεο; the exogenous manifestation of an ordering force) and Logos (λόγος; reason, logic, the divine presence in human readable form ). And it is in the second part of the word that one re-encounters that semiosis of the divine: that the human is incapable of speaking OF the divine (in whatever form the human can grasp it) without speaking FOR the God. 

Nietzsche spoke to this, of course (Nietzsche, Götzendämmerung), but with a measure of fear and loathing; one assuming that it was possible to break free of our cognitive cages and with it of the exogenous manifestation from out of which (or into which) humanity not just humanity's cognitive cages, but the rule systems that permitted structures to arise  that could authoritatively deprive others of life, liberty or property for failure to conform to the received or produced ordering Logos.  But Nietzsche was philosophizing with a hammer (oder, Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert; see, e.g., how one goes that task here, here, here). Others have sought to rationalize this semiosis within the cognitive cages of the Holy writ from out of which, and only through which, authoritative cognition of reality is possible. 

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But why use a hammer? Why use a hammer, a tool with a stone head in its Old Saxon reference, when one can construct a virtual manifestation of the thing that one wants to change--or explode--and so made, to unmake or make the fundamental ordering around which the virtual "hammerish" thing has been created. Where, as in older times, the hammer--martulus (Latin)--was transformed from something exogenous to the human to something intimately human, that is to a maccabeus (מַכַּבִּי, makkabī) sometimes connected to the Hebrew word for "hammer" (maqqebet; מַקָּבוֹת), which produced a collective semiotics of human, human purpose, and divine direction for interpreting and applying that purpose: it might be understood as the future patronymic of the Jewsih family Maccabesus and particularly through the father of the man who secured the liberation of the Jews from the Greek Syrians, Judah Maccabee; it might signify the son as the hammer of the Jewish collective against their enemies, it might contain within it the divine guidance for battle--the acronym for מִי-כָמֹכָה בָּאֵלִם יְהוָה ; Mi kamocha Ba'elim Adonai? ("Who, oh Lord, is like You among the mighty?").  

Why use a hammer when the virtual makes unavoidable a realization that humans are now the hammer. We are the thing we use; we are that thing virtually and in aggregation now made manifest in and through or technological manifestations. To some extent, then, it may be worth considering whether one any longer needs either humans or an exogenous, autonomous and non-human manifestation of divine force--one needs only the construction of the spirit of the divine from out of the human and into its virtual incarnation; one only needs a virtual God, and a θεολόγος (theologis), human or virtual, one that can receive, organize, manifest, impose, and render human the virtual theology of this virtual incarnation of the divine presence. And that presence may now be constructed as much from out of humanity as it is been received from outside by humanity. Is there, in the end, a difference within  a dialectics in which both vectors operate continuously and simultaneously?

Those are some of the orienting thoughts that emerged from a reading of Mohammed Gamal Abdelnour, Artificial Intelligence and the Islamic Theology of Technology: From “Means” to “Meanings” and from “Minds” to “Hearts” (2025) 16(6) Religions 796 (https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060796).  The author summarizes his work this way:

Muslim responses to Artificial Intellgence (AI) have so far focused mainly on how it challenges the human “mind”. This paper moves from the “mind” to the “heart”, which, in Islam, is not only a vessel of emotion but a cognitive, moral and spiritual centre. Charting a path between cynicism and optimism, the article proposes a third track: critical, hopeful, and ethically grounded. Utilizing indigenous Islamic concepts (e.g., ijtihād “independent reasoning”, maṣlaḥah mursalah “unrestricted public interest”, and sadd al-dharā’iʿ “blocking the means to harm”), it advocates a bottom-up approach that focuses not just on managing AI, but on shaping “who” we are in the AI age, calling for a moral vision rooted in intentionality (niyyah), moral clarity, and individual-cum-collective responsibility. (Artificial Intelligence and the Islamic Theology of Technology; Abstract).

The object is shared with other theological, political, and normative systems: how to bend technology in the service of, but more deeply, how to transform a technology itself, into the very manifestation, the authentic expression of, the the "spiritual and ethical values" of the meta-normative cage of normative (in this case religious) lifeworld, that is the world that is made by that exogenous presence who by its very nature is the essence of the thing created. It is a small step from this starting point to θεολόγος theo-logos, the theologian: "

Addressing this subject from a practical Muslim theology perspective, this paper explores the intersection of AI and Islamic theology, using four methodical questions, as articulated by Richard R. Osmer—a key theorist in practical theology: What is going on? (the descriptive-empirical task); Why is this going on? (the interpretative task); What ought to be going on? (the normative task); How might we respond? (the pragmatic task). * * * The latter two questions. . . direct us toward a constructive theological engagement with AI. The normative task calls on Muslim scholars and communities to assess AI through the lens of Quranic values, the Prophetic model (Sunnah), and maqāṣid (higher objectives of Islam).  . .  the pragmatic task challenges Muslim theologians, technologists, and policymakers to implement faithful and effective responses. (Artificial Intelligence and the Islamic Theology of Technology)

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Gamal Abdelnour starts with the possibilities of the virtual theologian. One argument, mirroring those of Chinese Marxists, views the entire enterprise as a Trojan Horse--the technologies of the virtual must be as corrupt and corrupting as the degenerate and haram  (حرام) premises within which it was created in liberal democratic non-Muslim Lifeworlds. The other suggests that the hammer can be distinguished from its wielder and that, purged of the corruption of its developers, can be deployed both for the Ummah  (أُمَّة; the community of Muslim believers) and against the dar al harb (دار الحرب) . Considered within this discussion is the further pone--can the virtual displace the human theologian, and from there, can it authoritatively speak for or serve as the vessel through which God speaks to  the believers. To that Gamal Abdelnour suggests the possibility of optimism--transposing the ancient Greek idea of the ikon (εἰκών ) into an Islamic context--one does not worship the object but rather uses the object as a portal to the authentic abstraction. That is, in the case of the virtual, one approaches a human abstraction of the divine as a means of reaching the "pure" abstraction that is the divine. Gamel Abdelnour then suggests that the virtual cannot displace the human theo-logos, interposing itself between its creator and THE creator: "To suggest that AI could produce theology in any meaningful sense is to conflate linguistic mimicry with spiritual apprehension and, in doing so, risks a reductive understanding of religion itself. Consequently, the claim that AI could generate its own theology represents a category error rather than a legitimate theological challenge." It is not clear that this is indeed possible, though Gamel Abdelnour is right to raise it--if the virtual represents the collective manifestation of the Ummah, and not just a particular cleric or other, then it might well be possible to suggest that the ummah speaks more clearly in its aggregated form than it does through the inspiration of an individual--unless of course, the individual is directly touched by the divine in a way that is denied the aggregated creation of humanity in itself. 

That brings him to his third and fourth questions. He suggests, in part, with respect t the third, that Islam is not burdened with the dissipation of religion that is the marker of advanced "Western" civilization--one that refuses to invest its tools with the moral and theological imprint that is taken for granted in both religious (and Marxist-Leninist) systems. "The result [Ganel Abdelnour suggests] of these historical and structural shifts is a culture awash in information but starving for wisdom. We have built machines that can simulate intelligence, process language, and make predictions—but we have not cultivated the ethical frameworks to decide how these capabilities should be used. In the absence of a shared metaphysical horizon, "(Artificial Intelligence and the Islamic Theology of Technology) Of course, Zigmut Bauman and Martha Nussbaum may not be the sole  ikon (εἰκών ) the reflection through which opens the authentic portal to the "heart" of the "West"; but there it is, certainly in the form of the shock troops of Western elite progress to self-actualization from a certain perspective. 

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This is worth noting only for its consequent--if indeed one misreads "the West" then one might also misread both the depth and amplitude of difference and the possibilities of avoiding the sort of corruption that is the start of the analysis. All of that I leave to others who might find in that consideration something to take up their time.  But the consequences is worthy of consideration--a means over meaning approach  only covers the fundamental values that are always to be encased in virtual representations of the physical world reduced to an endless iterative consumption of the data that in the aggregate constitutes that world (to the extent it is identified as such--another issue). "AI systems, therefore, not only reflect human values but also shape them, reinforcing existing inequities under the guise of neutrality. The overarching concern is existential: without reintegrating moral, philosophical, and spiritual insights, AI risks deepening a crisis where we have immense power but little wisdom about its purpose or consequences." What is missing then, is wisdom (sophia (σοφία)) --holy wisdom (hagia sophia Ἁγία Σοφία)-- which religion must supply. It follows, then, tn contrast to elite "modernity," to means over meaning approaches (the essential corruption of "the West"), Gamel Abdelnour offers one the other part of the binary that is the usual antipodes of classical dialectics: "Islamic intellectual history offers a contrasting model. Classical Muslim education was grounded in the harmonious integration of the ʿulūm al-naqliyya (transmitted sciences such as Quranic exegesis, hadith, and jurisprudence) and ʿulūm al-ʿaqliyya (rational sciences such as logic, philosophy, and medicine)." (Artificial Intelligence and the Islamic Theology of Technology). 

And the suggestion from out of the meta-cognitive cage of religion? That is straightforward as well--the virtual must not be constructed from out of the iterative mimetic actions and products of the human, but rather it must be first constructed within the cage of theological values, understanding and signification/organizaiton of the world of the human. Only then, and within it, might the human be embedded in a system now more closely connected to the divine. For Islam, the framework is fairly straightforward in theory. For other religions it may also be so--including the self-referencing systems of humanism, Marxist-Leninism and the religious pathways of pagans, those to which religious establishments might seek to dismiss, and certainly in some places to suppress. 

 The historical contributions of Muslim scholars to fields such as mathematics, astronomy, and medicine underscore Islam’s positive orientation toward scientific advancement. The works of scholars like Ibn Sina, Al-Khwarizmi, and Ibn al-Haytham (d. 1040) were not only compatible with Islamic values but were also driven by them. Today’s AI revolution can be seen as a continuation of this intellectual tradition—seeking knowledge that is beneficial and applying it in service of humanity. What is required is not rejection but the ethical calibration of AI to align with Islamic values. (Artificial Intelligence and the Islamic Theology of Technology).

To those ends, Gamel Abdelnour "challenges dominant AI discourses that prioritize cognitive intelligence by re-centring the Islamic theological concept of the qalb (heart) as the true locus of understanding, moral discernment, and spiritual receptivity in the Islamic tradition." (Artificial Intelligence and the Islamic Theology of Technology). To those ends, and as is common among some intellectuals in the "West," he suggests a binary in which the power of "Western" thought becomes its primary weakness in the face of the revolutionary (or divine reaching) potential of virtual technologies: 

Modern epistemologies, shaped by Cartesian dualism and Enlightenment rationalism, have marginalized the heart’s role, reducing intelligence to computational output and sidelining moral and spiritual wisdom. In contrast, Islam’s holistic anthropology integrates intellect and spirit, proposing that the heart’s reform is not only a theological imperative but a sociotechnical necessity in an AI-driven world. (Artificial Intelligence and the Islamic Theology of Technology).

That is true enough. Yet it also constitutes and is constituted by a way of perceiving the world, and of rationalizing those "things" that one sees (and distinguishes these from that which is not seen) that mimics rather than distinguishes the religious path from that which is deemed corrupt and corruption. And, indeed, in the concluding section, the "What is to be Done?" consequences of the excellent analysis, one returns to the foundational problem of the self as the object/source of dialogue with the divine.  

By beginning with the self, we also become co-creators of broader reform. If individual users engage AI with moral vigilance, ethical restraint, and spiritual intention, then their cumulative influence will ripple upward. Institutions are not impersonal monoliths; they are shaped by the aggregated values and expectations of individuals. Thus, a spiritually grounded grassroots reform may, in time, influence curricula, fatwas, platform design, and policy.(Artificial Intelligence and the Islamic Theology of Technology).

Yet that is the very essence of the journey of Western philosophy beyond that which was considered, and especially that which produces a more nuanced and complicated relationship between reality, cognition, the self, and the communal self in its relationship with itself and with those exogenous presences within which traditional religion is most comfortable (my discussion here: Larry Backer, The Soulful Machine, the Virtual Self and the "Human" Condition). Gamel Abdelnour ends by challenging readers: "Looking forward, the Islamic theology of technology must move beyond binary oppositions—rejection or uncritical acceptance—and offer a third path: one of purposeful engagement. By acknowledging that technology is not neutral, and that our responses to it shape who we become, Muslims are called to reassert their moral agency in a rapidly transforming world." (Artificial Intelligence and the Islamic Theology of Technology). One wonders, however, about the constitution of "moral agency" in a world of iterative mimetics cultivated through structures and pathways with respect to which religion may not work from or as a clean slate. 

Gamal Abdelnour's excellent article may be accessed HERE. 

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