The Epistemic Authority in Islamic Religious Education in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence: Reconstructing the Concepts of Sanad and Talaqqī

Abstract

Generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) places students of Islamic Religious Education before a source of religious knowledge that carries no chain of transmission. Existing scholarship addresses digital religious authority without entering the classroom, and technology in learning without questioning the knowledge's validity. This study reconstructs sanad and talaqqī into criteria of epistemic authority, tests generative artificial intelligence against them, and draws out the implications for Islamic Religious Education. Methodologically, this conceptual and philosophical-hermeneutic study draws on classical texts of hadith transmission, technological documents, and recent literature drawn from the Scopus database. Directed content analysis yields four criteria: continuity (ittiṣāl), moral integrity (ʿadālah), accuracy of transmission (ḍabṭ), and formation (takwīn). Generative artificial intelligence satisfies only accuracy, and only partially. Crucially, three failures are structural and one is contingent. This distinction requires task sorting and reasserting the teacher's standing, not blanket prohibition.