Can AI issue a fatwa? Debate grows over the Qaf Islamic assistant app

Can you ask a machine a religious question? That is the debate that has been raging online since the launch of Qaf, an AI-powered Islamic assistant app, and it is now reaching senior scholars.

What happened before?

Qaf launched in the first week of August 2026. Its store page describes it as a smart Islamic assistant for Muslims who want an easy way to ask questions, learn and reflect.

The reaction was sharp. One commenter on X warned that following a wrong fatwa (religious ruling) from a scholar is not a sin, but following one from AI is. Another wrote that every Muslim should download the app. The promo video from co-founder Abdullatif Abdulfattah drew millions of views.

A few days after the launch, Abdulfattah said the app is not a fatwa tool, and that AI cannot issue fatwas. He also said its answers are AI-generated and can be wrong.

What do scholars say?

Salem Abdel Galil, an Al-Azhar scholar and former Egyptian deputy minister of Awqaf (religious endowments), told BBC News Arabic that AI search tools have served scholars greatly. In his view, specialists can use them fully because they can judge what they read. Everyone else can learn from them as general knowledge, not as a religious ruling.

The question also worries established institutions. At a Cairo conference last year on training the "rightly guided mufti" in the age of AI, Mohamed al-Dowaini spoke on behalf of Al-Azhar's grand imam, Ahmed al-Tayeb. He called using AI a religious necessity, but said a machine cannot issue a fatwa alone. That process, he said, needs a feel for human nature and circumstances.

Why are Arabic models lagging?

Samer Rashwani, a researcher at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, is not optimistic. He says current Arabic AI models are "weak, very weak". One reason is US-China rivalry, which has restricted exports of the advanced chips needed to train and run models.

Another is data. By his estimate, Arabic makes up no more than half a percent of the web material used to train big commercial models. Much of the Islamic written heritage, including huge numbers of manuscripts, has not been digitised.

What's next?

Many specialists in the Arab and Muslim worlds seem to agree on one thing: it is time to move from being impressed by AI to helping build it, while setting clear rules for how it is used.