Dr M Waleed Kadous (hi@walee.dk) The Prophetic Strategy Summit · Istanbul · July 2026
Your AI will walk each level with you.
This talk shifts the focus — from "what is AI and what can I use it for" to: we're not moving fast enough to adapt.
وَنَبْلُوكُم بِالشَّرِّ وَالْخَيْرِ فِتْنَةً "We test you with evil and with good, as a fitnah." — Al-Anbiya 21:35
وَاعْلَمُوا أَنَّمَا أَمْوَالُكُمْ وَأَوْلَادُكُمْ فِتْنَةٌ "Know that your wealth and your children are but a fitnah…" — Al-Anfal 8:28
نِعْمَ الْمَالُ الصَّالِحُ لِلْمَرْءِ الصَّالِحِ "How excellent is righteous wealth for a righteous man." — Ahmad · al-Adab al-Mufrad (sahih)
A fitnah is a test — and good tests as surely as evil.
الْحُكْمُ عَلَى الشَّيْءِ فَرْعٌ عَنْ تَصَوُّرِهِ "Judgment on a thing is a branch of conceptualizing it." — a juristic maxim
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِن جَاءَكُمْ فَاسِقٌ بِنَبَإٍ فَتَبَيَّنُوا "O you who believe, if a fasiq brings you news — verify it." — Al-Hujurat 49:6
Blue = what AI could do. Red = what it's already doing. (Anthropic)
World Economic Forum · the displaced number ≈ 4 Canadian workforces.
PwC — 14% boost. > 7 Canadas. > India 4× over.
Universal Basic Income — or trillionaires? Inaction picks the second.
And it is only going to get faster.
The length of tasks AI can complete is doubling every ~4 months since 2023 — Claude Mythos Preview (early): ~17 hours. (METR — independent AI evaluators, May 2026)
That is eight weeks.
No previous technology did this.
The train has its own engine.
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِذَا تَدَايَنتُم بِدَيْنٍ إِلَىٰ أَجَلٍ مُّسَمًّى فَاكْتُبُوهُ "O you who believe: when you contract a debt for a fixed term, write it down." — Ayat al-Dayn, Al-Baqarah 2:282
كُلُّكُمْ رَاعٍ وَكُلُّكُمْ مَسْؤُولٌ عَنْ رَعِيَّتِهِ "Each of you is a shepherd, and each of you is responsible for his flock." — Bukhari & Muslim
وَاعْلَمُوا أَنَّمَا غَنِمْتُم مِّن شَيْءٍ فَأَنَّ لِلَّهِ خُمُسَهُ وَلِلرَّسُولِ "Know that whatever you take as spoils — a fifth of it is for Allah and for the Messenger…" — Al-Anfal 8:41
Your ra'iyyah is already in the water.
Some of you will lose your jobs to AI. At that point, you will have to adapt.
And you will ask the question many are already asking:
What is my significance if a machine can do my job?
"Two blessings concerning which many people are cheated: health and free time." نِعْمَتَانِ مَغْبُونٌ فِيهِمَا كَثِيرٌ مِنَ النَّاسِ الصِّحَّةُ وَالْفَرَاغُ — Bukhari
That $15.7T of GDP is going to go somewhere. The hours AI gives you back are going to go somewhere.
How will you use them?
Pay khums on your freed time.
وَكَذَٰلِكَ جَعَلْنَاكُمْ أُمَّةً وَسَطًا "And so We have made you a middle, balanced community…" — Al-Baqarah 2:143
وَلْتَكُن مِّنكُمْ أُمَّةٌ يَدْعُونَ إِلَى الْخَيْرِ وَيَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَيَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ ۚ وَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ "Let there be a group among you who call to goodness, encourage what is good, and forbid what is evil; it is they who will be successful." — Aal-'Imran 3:104
Condemn → Debate → Miss out → Adopt.
10–20 years lost, every time. The printing press cost us ~280 years. The train is faster.
وَأَعِدُّوا لَهُم مَّا اسْتَطَعْتُم مِّن قُوَّةٍ "And prepare against them whatever you are able of quwwah…" — Al-Anfal 8:60
The Ummah's capacity to control its own digital infrastructure — its data, its AI systems, its rules, its values — so that no external power can dictate how its communities use, build, or benefit from the technologies they depend on.
Things are known by their opposites.
The last sovereign space the Ummah had online — being closed in real time.
Whoever shapes the model, shapes how a generation sees reality.
A year ago there was essentially one Islamic AI tool. Today:
The scholars and the technologists are starting to meet.
You can't improve what you can't measure. Built by Muslims, for Muslims:
This is how we'll hold the frontier labs accountable. Remember this slide.
That $15.7T is going to go somewhere.
"…so that wealth does not circulate only among the rich among you." — Qur'an 59:7
Zakat · qard hasan · waqf · takaful — the Islamic toolkit for distribution is 1,400 years old.
More relevant now, not less.
وَتَعَاوَنُوا عَلَى الْبِرِّ وَالتَّقْوَىٰ ۖ وَلَا تَعَاوَنُوا عَلَى الْإِثْمِ وَالْعُدْوَانِ "Cooperate in righteousness and taqwā — and do not cooperate in sin and aggression." — Al-Ma'idah 5:2
لَقَدْ شَهِدْتُ فِي دَارِ عَبْدِ اللهِ بْنِ جُدْعَانَ حِلْفًا مَا أُحِبُّ أَنَّ لِي بِهِ حُمُرَ النَّعَمِ، وَلَوْ أُدْعَى بِهِ فِي الْإِسْلَامِ لَأَجَبْتُ "I witnessed in the house of Abdullah ibn Jud'ān a pact I would not exchange for red camels — and if I were called to it in Islam, I would answer." — Ahmad (sahih)
إِنَّا عَرَضْنَا الْأَمَانَةَ عَلَى السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَالْجِبَالِ فَأَبَيْنَ أَن يَحْمِلْنَهَا ... وَحَمَلَهَا الْإِنسَانُ "We offered the Trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains — they declined to bear it… but man undertook to bear it." — Al-Ahzab 33:72
Amr bil-ma'ruf wa nahy 'an al-munkar. Enjoining good, forbidding wrong (3:104).
We advocate for AI that serves humanity, and stand against AI that harms it.
Before prophethood, the Prophet ﷺ joined a pact at the house of Abdullah ibn Jud'ān — Meccan clans, polytheists among them, swearing to stand with any wronged person.
Years later, from the other side of prophethood, he said he would not exchange it for red camels — and if called to it in Islam, he would answer.
The creed was not the condition. The conviction was.
The world has decided this is civilizational.
Deseret News · April 7, 2026
Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department of War — the Faith Family Technology Network (FFTN) brief, three arguments rooted in faith:
A multi-faith coalition — iaser.ai carried the Muslim voice into it.
The question Anthropic put to 25 faith leaders at The Convening:
"Can your faith traditions help us achieve a better outcome for humanity?"
Even the best model brings religion into fewer than 30% of everyday ethics answers — CEFE (Baylor · BYU · Notre Dame · Yeshiva) · cefe.ai
"The example of a good companion and a bad one is the seller of musk and the one who works the bellows." مَثَلُ الْجَلِيسِ الصَّالِحِ وَالْجَلِيسِ السَّوْءِ كَمَثَلِ صَاحِبِ الْمِسْكِ وَكِيرِ الْحَدَّادِ — Muslim
Remember the benchmarks slide? It goes further:
We built the measuring stick — then built it for everyone.
gpt‑5.5: −0.25 → −1 under pressure · Ansari: +1 throughout — judged against the tradition's own proof texts · investigate it yourself: multibrowser-production.up.railway.app