The Global Fatwa Index participates in the Arab Civil Society and Youth Conference of the League of Arab States
Dr. Tariq Abu Hashima, Director of the Global Fatwa Index at the Egyptian Fatwa House, participated in the conference “Civil society and Arab youth are partners in raising challenges.. Together we raise challenges.” The League of Arab States, representing the Fatwa House and commissioned by Dr. Nazir Muhammad Ayyad, Mufti of the Republic, Head of the General Secretariat for the Roles and Fatwa Bodies in the World.
Dr. Tariq Abu Hashima spoke in his speech about the danger of electronic applications on religious belief and moral values, stressing that the youth stage is the most important stage for a person because it is based on building and work; Building personality on science, religion, values and morals, and working to build the nation and its renaissance, so the energies of young people must be invested between science and work.
He stressed that electronic applications play a major role in the lives of societies, not just young people, due to their diversity and the complexity of their uses. However, although these electronic applications are useful for some time, it should be known that they are not neutral tools, but rather biased algorithms. Rather, they have become cognitive, behavioral and educational environments that compete with the educational institutions of the family, the mosque and the school, and they alone have the largest share in shaping the awareness and conscience of children and young people today.
He added that these applications, despite the diversity of their declared and apparently free goals, range from entertainment, social communication, health, productivity, education and commerce; However, there are undeclared goals; Some of them are economic, which aims to collect data to transform their user from a user to a producer of data that advertisers benefit from. Some of them are psychological through dopamine algorithms or quick gratification by searching for exciting content. Some of them are cultural, representing a “cognitive bubble.” It imposes on young people a certain lifestyle, such as promoting absolute individual freedom, which clashes with religion and morality.
The director of the Global Fatwa Index pointed out that there are aspects in these applications that pose a threat to religion and morality, including, for example, what is similar to the “micro-dosing” method. Through which some small reel clips are published containing suspicions that cast doubt on religious values and morals, presented under the guise of enlightenment in small and repeated doses, causing a long-term psychological effect, including what is also called “normalizing taboos or wrong behaviors.” Such as the repeated appearance of behaviors that conflict with religion and moral values through applications, advertisements, and games.
He added that among these applications is what is most dangerous, which is fragmenting loyalty to faith, the state, and the family, and strengthening loyalty to the influencers of these applications and various brands. This feature I see as dangerous because it is linked to the axis of identity and the attempt to obliterate it, as it aims to strip young people of any moral, religious, and national values, which transforms societies from solid societies capable of confronting the challenges they face to fragile societies quickly. She does not collapse in the face of any threat directed at her.
Dr. explained. Abu Hashima said that these applications produce religious discourses extracted from their context, and are based on so-called generative artificial intelligence, which do not express the true religion, and that the real danger today is in shaping the religious awareness of young people through these applications, which lack the minimum level of knowledge to produce a sober religious discourse, and with regard to fatwas, they are incapable of producing a correct religious fatwa, due to their ignorance of the stages of producing the correct fatwa and their inability to understand the reality of the questioner.
Also, the moral values provided by these applications are It is fundamentally biased toward environments and cultures different from our societies and cultures. For example, it promotes the pattern of absolute, unrestricted individual freedom, and this is not compatible with our religion, values, and customs. The dependence of young people from the new generations of Generation Z and Alpha on visual culture has made many of them lose the ability to be patient for in-depth and critical reading of all the phenomena surrounding them, and led them to selective faith, meaning choosing what they like and abstaining from what they do not like, regardless of its agreement with religion or His difference.
He pointed out that this digital environment placed the responsibility on awareness-building and upbringing institutions to carry out their role, and one of these institutions was the Egyptian Fatwa House, which was keen from an early stage to activate its scientific and research tools to confront all the deviant trends that want to harm the nation’s youth, whether by presenting a sober fatwa discourse linked to the principles and not disconnected from the issues and language of the era, and launched initiatives that aimed to build youth awareness, whether before, through immunization, or during, through guidance. And guidance or later by providing advice to maximize the benefit from what has been learned, and these efforts must be integrated with the efforts of other educational institutions to bear fruit.
This participation comes out of the keenness of His Eminence the Mufti and the Egyptian Fatwa House to be present in all scholarly forums to emphasize their role in the statement and their message in spreading moderation and dealing with emerging issues.
