THE POTENTIALS AND LIMITATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN ISLAMIC LEGAL METHODOLOGY: A CASE STUDY OF DSN-MUI FATWA NO. 166/DSN-MUI/II/2026

Abstract

 The rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly Large
Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT and Fanar 2.0, has permeated
diverse aspects of human life, including Islamic legal determination. While AI
offers efficiency in religious text processing, legal evidence analysis, and intermadhab comparison, it simultaneously introduces risks of hallucination,
inconsistency, and failure to appreciate 'illah, maqasid al-shariah, and fiqh alwaqi'. AI fundamentally lacks consciousness, moral accountability, and the
scholarly qualifications of a mujtahid, raising a critical epistemological concern:
to what extent may AI participate in Islamic legal reasoning without supplanting
the authority of ulama in istinbat al-ahkam?. This study employs a qualitativecomparative approach using fiqh muqaran and Islamic epistemological analysis.
Primary sources include the Qur'an, Sunnah, classical jurisprudential texts, and
DSN-MUI fatwas, supplemented by empirical evaluations of ChatGPT and Meta
WhatsApp AI outputs. Analysis compares knowledge mechanisms and reasoning
quality between AI and a qualified mujtahid, focusing on DSN-MUI Fatwa No.
166/DSN-MUI/II/2026 on Gold Bullion Business Activities Based on Sharia
Principles. While AI proves advantageous as a rapid auxiliary tool for evidence
retrieval, hadith takhrij, and textual analysis, its epistemic limitations remain
fundamental — probabilistic, hallucination-prone, and devoid of spiritual
accountability. This study establishes an epistemological framework affirming
that AI may only serve as a supervised supporting instrument, never replacing
the mujtahid, whose rulings require the irreplaceable integration of wahy, 'aql,
bashirah, and eschatological responsibility.