Ministry of Religious Affairs: AI Lacks a Teacher, Scholarly Lineage, and Moral Responsibility

The increasingly massive development of artificial intelligence (AI) will not be able to replace the role of humans, particularly in the formation of character, adab (proper conduct), and the Islamic scholarly tradition. Director of Islamic Religious Information at the Indonesian Ministry of Religious Affairs, Muchlis M Hanafi, asserted that AI is merely a tool that possesses no scholarly lineage (sanad), no teacher, and no moral responsibility. “AI can help find verses, hadith, tafsir books, or scholarly opinions in a matter of seconds,” Muchlis said during the Scientific Oration for the 19th Akhirussanah Santri Graduation of Al-Qur’aniyyah Islamic Boarding School at the SC STAN Bintaro Building, South Tangerang, last Sunday (21/6/2026). However, according to Muchlis, AI has no sanad, no teacher, no spiritual experience, and bears no moral responsibility for the answers it provides. In an oration titled ‘From Scholarly Tradition Towards Civilisation: Becoming a Qur’anic Generation in the Era of Artificial Intelligence’, Muchlis emphasised that in the Islamic tradition, knowledge is not only about the correctness of information, but also about who teaches it, how the knowledge is acquired, and the values and adab that accompany it. “In the Islamic tradition, knowledge is not merely a matter of correct information, but also about who teaches it, how it is obtained, and the values and adab that accompany it,” he stated in his remarks to Republika.co.id in Jakarta, Wednesday (24/6/2026). Therefore, according to Muchlis, the presence of AI can indeed assist the learning process and broaden access to knowledge, but it will never replace the role of the teacher, the ulama, and the talaqqi tradition that has been a hallmark of Islamic knowledge transmission from the time of Prophet Muhammad SAW to the present day. He also reminded that technological progress must not cause the younger generation to lose their enthusiasm for learning and dedication to knowledge.