The Significance of «Tafsiri Hilol» in Addressing the Problem of Asking Artificial Intelligence About the Meanings of Qurʾanic Verses

Abstract

This paper investigates the scholarly and methodological problems that arise in the course of determining the meanings of the verses of the Noble Qurʾan and of obtaining exegetical explanations by means of artificial-intelligence technologies, together with the significance, in removing those problems, of the work «Tafsiri Hilol» of Shaykh Muhammad Sodiq Muhammad Yusuf and of the applications of that work developed for Android and iOS devices and for computers. Employing descriptive-analytical and comparative methods, the methods of Qurʾanic studies and the rules of exegesis, the study examines the reliability of the information presented by artificial intelligence, the correct apprehension of the contextual content of the verses, and the conformity of exegetical explanations to scholarly sources. By analysing the commentaries upon the Qurʾanic verses given in «Tafsiri Hilol», it further considers the possibilities of using, for the verification and evaluation of information obtained through artificial-intelligence tools, those verses in which the manner and the sources of acquiring knowledge, scholarly trustworthiness and the criteria of justice are set out. The results of the research do not reject contemporary artificial-intelligence programs absolutely; rather they disclose that observing the criteria of using such programs as instruments prevents a person from going astray, that instruments cannot take the place of the human factor, of the mufti and of the scholar, and that any question concerning either the text or the meaning of the verses of the Qurʾan ought to be sought not from artificial-intelligence programs but from verified sources such as «Tafsiri Hilol».