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# Leveraging AI to Serve the Ummah
### A hands-on workshop for Muslim community leaders
Dr M Waleed Kadous
Azka Events & Catering, Elmont, NY — Sunday 27 September 2026
*In cooperation with The Ibadi Foundation, ISD and FITYA*
---
# Session 1 — Introduction
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## Materials
**Everything you need: [s.iaser.ai/azka](https://s.iaser.ai/azka)**
| Link | URL |
|---|---|
| Slides | [s.iaser.ai/azka](https://s.iaser.ai/azka) |
*Scan the QR or visit s.iaser.ai/azka for the full materials doc.*
---
## Goals for today
- Understand why mastering AI is critical to the Ummah — starting with ourselves
- Practical tools across 5 approaches: **creativity, productivity, customization, multimodal, knowledge**
- Know what to watch for: **bias, hallucination, non-compliance, emotional connection**
- Help our communities deal with the challenges of AI
---
## Plan for today
A compressed version of a 6-hour course: today the **core material**; the slides also include the **extended material**.
1. **Overview** — How can AI help me? What do I need to avoid?
2. **Deep Dives** — Preparing the Community for AI, Using AI for Islam-related work
3. **Support after** — Community to keep learning together
---
## Part 1 — Overview
- Introduce the tools and how to use them safely
- **5 approaches** to using AI, **4 things** to watch for
- Show the many ways it can help you
- You'll need to follow up afterwards and teach yourself
---
## Part 2 — Deep Dives
- Take typical Da'wah activities and **actually build** with the tools
- Preparing the Community for AI · Using AI for Islam-related work
- *Build the table, the chair, the shelf — not just look at the toolbox.*
---
## Part 3 — Support Group
- Community to keep using AI well after today
- Dr Hidayath and I will answer your questions
- We learn faster together than alone
- **[walee.dk/amjawa](http://walee.dk/amjawa)** — *by invitation*
---
## Participate!
- Have your laptops open (but maybe close your email and whatsapp windows)
- Feel free to ask questions at any time.
- Our experience is questions make the course richer
- We've allocated time in the schedule for Q + A
- This is all very new stuff and we are learning together
- However, we may ask to hold off if we're behind or it's covered elsewhere
---
## Teach a daee to fish — General AIs
- We will use particular tools here, but that is not an endorsement
- The main "general" AIs we will use today
- **gemini.google.com** — free with reasonable limits
- **claude.ai** — now available for free; my "daily" AI
- **Paid plans (~$20/month)** unlock **better models** and **more usage**
- Personally, avoid ChatGPT, CEO is morally suspect
---
## Teach a daee to fish — Islamic AIs
- **askansari.ai** — open source, created by Waleed
- **usul.ai** — next-generation Shamela
- **qaf.ai** — kind of usul v2
- **aifiqh.com** — 24,000+ classical texts
- **islamify.ai** — overseen by a scholars' council
- **dalail.ai** — Arabic first
---
# Session 2 — Five Approaches to Using AI
---
## How we'll do this
- 5 ways to use AI
- For each:
- Discuss some examples
- Your turn: how can you use this to serve the Ummah as an Daee?
- We will discuss as a group.
---
## Try to pass the siwak test
- Larry Page taught us at Google to find the most impactful products
- Look for things like toothbrush (or **siwak**!) that you use twice a day
- What things do you do twice a day that you could use AI to help with?
---
# The Principle of AI Infinite Regression
---
# “The solution to a problem around AI is…”
---
# “The solution to a problem around AI is… **more AI.**”
---
## Corollaries
- The best way to learn AI is to … ask AI
- The best way to design prompts is to … ask AI
- The best way to check AI is to … ask another AI
---
## AI helps with AI
- Step 1: Go to **gemini.google.com** or **claude.ai**
- Step 2: Type the same prompt into both. See how they respond.
- “I serve the Muslim Ummah by <FILL IN>. Give me 5 ideas for how I can use AI for <problem>.”
- Step 3 (very important): Think, contemplate, select.
- Step 4 (optional): Discuss, refine, iterate.
- Step 5: Share with the group.
---
## Approach 1 — Creativity
---
## Creativity
- AI can help you come up with ideas.
- It can help be a sounding board for your ideas.
- Example: coming up with analogies.
- You can also use it to generate images and videos that you don’t have the skill to make yourself.
---
## Give me n <a> for <problem b>
---
## Generating Images
 
---
## Generating Videos
 
---
## Tools I used + Special tips
- Images
- Now built in to Gemini and ChatGPT
- Many more: Runway, Midjourney, Leonardo
- Videos: **Gemini Omni** (in the Gemini app) · **Google Flow** (creative suite)
- **Special tip:** writing prompts for image/video generation is hard — *use AI to craft the prompt!*
---
## Where AI Video Is Today
- **Super powerful with words** — getting better with video
- Video is **still improving — in its infancy**
- Video creation takes a ***lot* more iteration**
---
## Your turn!
- What are some ways you can use AI for **creativity**?
- Share it with others!
- You have 3 minutes, then we’ll discuss as a group.
---
## Approach 2 — Productivity
---
## Productivity
- Anything that used words can now be done more quickly
- Examples:
- Automatically drafting e-mail responses
- Generating summaries for your articles
- Extract information from pdfs
- Understanding images
- You can automate things
---
## Examples
- Adapt this khutbah for the newsletter
- Summarize the feedback from the event survey
- Put together this grant proposal based on this application proposal and our last grant proposal
- Write a bio for this speaker based on Linkedin
---
## Special tool highlight: Scheduled actions
- You can ask AI to do something for you every so often.
- Example:
- “I want an update on the latest developments in AI every Monday”
- “Send me an update on the latest developments in the Ummah every Thursday night”
---
## Your turn!
- What are some ways you can use AI for productivity?
- Share it with others!
- You have 3 minutes, then we’ll discuss as a group.
---
## Approach 3 — Customization
---
## Customizing
- Make AI fit your situation, instead of one-size-fits-all.
---
## Customizing — Examples
- You have a writing style and when you use AI to write it doesn’t sound like you. You can teach AI your writing style.
- You have donors who have different interests. You can tailor your update to focus on their interests.
- You have a presentation to PhDs, and now you want to present to high school students.
---
## Your turn!
- What are some ways you can use AI for **customizing**?
- Share it with others!
- You have 3 minutes, then we’ll discuss as a group.
---
## Approach 4 — Multilingual + Multimodal
---
## Multilingual
- We are a community blessed with many languages
- AI is very good at translating between languages
- Have done evaluations of translations e.g. of Zad Al Masir by Ibn Al Jawzi
- On par with human!
---
## Multimodality
- Can understand images
- Can transcribe audio
- Can convert a lecture from text to a podcast
---
## Just how good is it?
---
## Special tool highlight: Gemini Notebook from Google
- Have a long drive? Why not convert a book into a podcast?
- notebook.google.com
- Special page with all the AMJA presentations uploaded, audio summary, video summary, mind map.
- s.iaser.ai/amjanb
- Public, so all of us can use it.
---
## Your turn!
- How could you use AI for languages, images and audio?
- Share it with others!
- You have 3 minutes, then we’ll discuss as a group.
---
## Approach 5 — Knowledge: Research, Learning, Teaching
---
## Potential — Finding Information
- AI’s ability to find information is just phenomenal
- Example: Claude AMJA project + Gemini Notebook
- Uploaded all papers
- Can ask it anything and I mean anything
- Example 2: qaf.ai
- Researches 8,000+ Islamic books, answers with citations
---
## Potential — Tailoring Content
- It can fit the answer to the person in front of you.
- Explain Qadar to someone at different levels
---
## Special tool highlight: Deep Research
- Gemini Deep Research
- Give it a topic, and let it run for 15 minutes
- Use it for Islamic stuff but also for dunya stuff
- Examples:
- What donor management software should we use?
- What is the history of calligraphy in Islam?
- Tell me how other Muslim non-profits are using AI
- Highly researched, highly supported
- Be careful using for Islamic topics
- Ansari.chat does not have deep research, nor does any system
---
## Your turn!
- How could you use AI for research, learning and teaching?
- Share it with others!
- You have 3 minutes, then we’ll discuss as a group.
---
# Break
---
# Session 3 — Four Things to Watch For
---
## Bias – in the old days
---
## Now more subtle — e.g. homosexuality
---
## Now more subtle — e.g. homosexuality *(continued)*
---
## Bias — another example
---
## Solution?
- Use an Islamic AI Assistant
- Using another AI? Be very specific in your prompt.
---
# Hallucination
---
## Hallucination
---
## Has gotten much better
- Much less of an issue now. ChatGPT no longer makes that mistake.
- But still need to watch
- The key approach change:
- Grounding in concrete sources
- Most AIs now include web search
- Gone from a disconnected brain to a brain + library working together
---
## askansari.ai is grounded in:
- Quran
- Hadith
- Encyclopedia of Islamic Fiqh (from kuwaiti awqaf)
- Encyclopedia of Evidence-based Tafseer (tafseer bil-ma’thoor)
---
## Solution
- Use AI grounded in Islamic sources: askansari.ai, usul.ai, dalail.ai
- If you must use non-Islam-grounded AI
- Emphasize need for grounded and evidence-based answers
- Emphasize the sources that you want it to use
---
## Non-compliance + randomness
- Bias + hallucination are not solved, but are well understood
- This one annoys me most, every day.
---
## Non-compliance
- AI doesn’t do what you tell it to
- Be concise, then produces a 500 word answer
---
## Randomness
- AI does things you didn’t tell it to
- Concrete examples:
- randomly rounding numbers to the nearest 5%
- You ask it to shorten a doc and it drops the most important part
---
## Solutions: Randomness
- **Review every word.** Every. Word.
- Watch as the AI works — click into thinking blocks, check it uses the correct sources
- Fix your prompt so it doesn't happen again.
- *So many embarrassing stories — it's not just students who get busted for using AI*
---
## AI feels human, but it’s not
- We treat everything like a person — even a machine.
- A very natural tendency
- An interaction with Ansari in the tiny hours
- Starting to see people build relationships with AI
- Dead people, relationships (some indecent)
---
## AI feels human — companies exploit this
- Some companies are exploiting this deliberately (e.g. OpenAI)
- GPT-4 got in trouble for being too “sycophantic” – would agree with the human.
- “Flattery will get you everywhere, even if it’s AI”
- GPT-5 was less sycophantic and this led to a HUGE backlash.
- Users demanded continued access to GPT-4 … and they got it
---
## What is actually happening
---
## AI is really highly advanced next word prediction
- … Trained on every word humanity has ever written
---
## Like a parrot with a very big memory
---
## Solutions: Understanding how it works
- Understanding how it works
- Helps to convince you it’s not human
- It learned everything from us. It didn't start from nothing.
- So "AI proves there's no God" makes no sense — it's a poor mirror of Allah's creation.
---
## Solutions *(continued)*
- Very analogous to how social networks “hack” dopamine for views
- This one has no clear solution
- Something we will have to guide our communities through
- This is the most “intrinsic” problem with AI. It won’t be fixed, it will probably get worse
---
## Conclusions — Why & How
- The Ummah must be at the forefront of AI — **especially Imams**
- Pick things you do regularly. Ask AI: *"how can you help me?"*
- **Experimentation matters.** Try, observe, refine.
---
## Conclusions — 5 Approaches to Using AI
1. **Creativity**
2. **Productivity**
3. **Customization**
4. **Multilingual / Multimodal**
5. **Knowledge** *(research, teaching, learning)*
---
## Conclusions — 4 Things to Watch For
- **Bias.** *Fix:* use Islamic AI or prompt carefully.
- **Hallucination.** *Fix:* use Islamic AI or ground results.
- **Non-compliance & randomness.** *Fix:* prompt forcefully, review every word.
- **Emotional connection.** *Fix:* remember — it's just numbers.
---
# Session 4 — Using AI for Islam
---
## The dangers of using AI for Islamic work
- **Bias** — subtle, e.g. homosexuality
- **Hallucination** — made-up hadith, verses, citations
- **Non-compliance & randomness** — it doesn't do what you ask, and varies each time
- **Emotional connection** — it feels human, but it's just numbers
---
## Benchmarks for Islamic accuracy
- New: benchmarks now measure how accurate these tools are — **IslamicMMLU**, **IslamicLegalBench**
- Live leaderboard: **[huggingface.co/spaces/islamicmmlu/leaderboard](https://huggingface.co/spaces/islamicmmlu/leaderboard)**
---
# The alternatives
---
## How these tools work: RAG
- These are all RAG systems — Retrieval Augmented Generation.
- **RAG means:** before you use the LLM, you retrieve context
- Example: someone asks about Zakat eligibility
- AI looks at the question and decides to search using another tool, in this case Qur'an
- It comes back with the Qur'anic Ayah
- Adds this to the prompt
- RAG massively reduces hallucination
---
## Think of RAG as Prompt Expansion
- Initial Prompt: “What are the categories of Zakat? ”
- AI Pass 1: I should probably search the Qur’an for that. Let me search the Qur’an …
- Tool: Here are 10 ayahs around zakat
- Expanded Prompt:
- “What are the categories of Zakat? Please consider this information in answering
- <Quran verse> …”
- AI Pass 2: OK, the 8 categories of Zakat based on Ayah …
---
## RAG in action
---
## Why RAG is good
- RAG is a form of context — **more context constrains the AI and reduces hallucination**
- More context leads to better results
---
## The Limits of RAG
- Pay for LLMs by the number of word segments (tokens)
- The more words you provide and the more words you produce
- The longer it takes
- The more it costs
- Example:
- Ansari is very RAG-intensive – every conversation costs about 20 cents
---
## Limits of RAG part 2
- AI has a context window – maximum number of words it can process at once
- Claude: 200,000 tokens = ~150,000 words, ~300 pages
- Gemini: 1,000,000 tokens = ~750,000 words, ~1500 pages
- Typical Ansari conversation is ~100,000 tokens
---
## 6 tools for AI-based Islamic research
- **[askansari.ai](https://askansari.ai)** — open source, created by Waleed
- **[usul.ai](http://usul.ai)** — next-generation Shamela
- **[qaf.ai](https://qaf.ai)** — kind of usul v2
- **[aifiqh.com](https://aifiqh.com)** — 24,000+ classical texts
- **[islamify.ai](https://islamify.ai)** — overseen by a scholars' council
- **[dalail.ai](https://dalail.ai)** — Arabic first
---
## askansari.ai
- **Oldest** — on version 3, ~2 years old
- **Widely used** — ~300 conversations per day
- Name = "supporter"
- Strongest on **Qur'an, Hadith, Fiqh**, material preparation
- **A little rusty** — work starting on **Ansari 4**
---
## usul.ai
- A newer AI chat
- **Most comprehensive coverage** of classical texts
- Think of it as **AI-powered Shamela**
---
## qaf.ai
- **Kind of usul v2**
- Researches **8,000+ Islamic books**, answers with citations
- 14 languages · iOS, Android and web
---
## aifiqh.com
- **24,000+ classical texts** and Shariah standards
---
## islamify.ai
- Answers grounded in **Qur'an and Hadith**, sources shown
- **Overseen by a scholars' council** — Ahlus-Sunnah tradition
- No ads, no selling your data
---
## dalail.ai
- **Arabic first**
- A family of assistants for the Islamic sciences: heritage-text search and Qur'anic tafsir today; hadith, fiqh and seerah coming
- Sources: heritage books and verified scholars
---
## A prompt for your general AI
- A tested prompt that makes ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini **support your iman**
- Practical help pointed toward Islamic values
- Steadfast when pushed
- No fabricated citations
- Install it once — instructions for each platform: **[s.iaser.ai/prompt](https://s.iaser.ai/prompt)**
---
## Important: Verifying sources
- Use the right tools
- Use askansari.ai, or usul.ai when searching for hadith
- If using a general AI:
- Don’t assume that the hadith actually exists unless you’ve verified it
- Don’t assume the translation of a quran’ic verse is accurate
- Don’t assume that the reference to a verse is correct
---
## Verifying sources *(continued)*
- Read every word. EVERY. WORD.
- The worst place to discover an error or issue is on the minbar
**AI is not accountable. You are.**
---
# Session 5 — The Ummah and AI: Preparing the Community
---
## AI will lead to major societal changes
- Upheaval, even. Our community will not be exempt:
- Nature of jobs, employment, labor market
- “AI won’t replace human workers, but people that use it will replace people that don’t” – Andrew Ng
- Training programs
- AI “companions” and “friends” - adults and children!
- Dealing with addiction
---
## Major societal changes *(continued)*
- Students and Education
- Deepfakes
- Strategy to deal with this as a community
- Akhlaq and interpersonal relationships
- Ability to form relationships, resolve conflict
---
## Teach your community to fish
- Point them to the **Islamic AIs**: askansari.ai · usul.ai · qaf.ai · aifiqh.com · islamify.ai · dalail.ai
- For the general AIs they already use: the tested prompt that **supports their iman**
- Share it with your community: **[s.iaser.ai/prompt](https://s.iaser.ai/prompt)**
---
# Closing: Q&A & Implementation
---
## Parting thoughts
- Your Q + A
- My Q + A
- What was the most important thing you learned today?
---
## Tonight
- **Rising to the Challenge of AI: Tech Sovereignty, the Ummah, and the Individual**
- **Islamic Center of Long Island**, 835 Brush Hollow Road, Westbury
- **7 PM – 9 PM** · free
---
# s.iaser.ai/azka
- **These slides** · a file **for your AI**
- **askansari.ai**
- **iaser.ai**
- **hi@walee.dk**
---
# Extended Material
*From the full-day AMJA workshop — not covered today*
---
# Deep Dive: Khutbahs & Khatirahs
---
## What You Bring
- The **core message**
- Your **experience** — you've done what no AI can
- Your **understanding of your audience**
---
## Begin with the End in Mind (Niyyah) — The Core Message
- **How do you want people to feel differently after the khutbah?**
- **How do you want people to think differently?**
- **How do you want people to behave differently afterwards?**
---
## What AI Brings
- **Ideas** — and a **sounding board** for yours
- A **research tool**
- A great tool for **amplifying your voice** — audiences, formats, media, languages
---
## What AI Should Not Bring
- **AI cannot have niyyah** — trusting it with the goal, with the message, is disastrous
- *"Give me 10 ideas for videos to increase my views"* — the niyyah is **broken from the beginning**
- Turning 2 bullets into **3 pages** · **deciding the core message** · tailoring into **spam**
**AI is not accountable. You are.**
---
# Use AI more to raise the bar, less to save you time.
---
## This is a presentation, so I should use AI, right?
- Wanted to show you how I prepared this presentation
- My conversation with Claude (special version with Ansari integrated)
---
## The prompt I used to prepare this section
- I am giving a seminar on using AI to help with constructing khutbahs and khatirahs. I am talking to Imams at the AMJA national convention.
- I have some ideas about what I want to talk about, but really could do with some help with organizing it. I think two points I want to hit are the importance of checking sources (e.g. usul.ai and askansari.ai) and the power of rich context to customize the khutbah.
- I want it to be extremely practical. I can give live demos. I am pretty experienced with AI.
---
## Context: Audience, me, style
> I am giving a seminar on using AI to help with constructing khutbahs and khatirahs. I am talking to Imams at the AMJA national convention. I have ideas but could use help organizing it. I want it to be **extremely practical**. I can give live demos. I'm experienced with AI.
**My starting ideas:**
- Ideation, importance of context, making it yours
---
## Context: Audience, me, style *(continued)*
> The ideas I have:
> - **Ideation** — using AI to find topics (e.g. time-of-year events)
> - **Context** — audience, world events, local community
> - **Making it yours** — your style, your khutbah format
>
> I'd love your feedback. Make sure to consult Ansari, since this is an Islamic topic.
---
## AI doesn't replace you. It makes your khutbah better.
- Option 1: “Write a khutbah about patience”
- I have asked it and shown it as a demonstration
- One person told me “probably better than 50 per cent of khutbahs I’ve heard” — https://askansari.ai/share/68abfa28ec0b4b07eb7af7fc
---
## Customizing for your audience — Option 2
**Situational khutbah prompt:**
> I am an imam in our community. Our community had **floods last week**. Many are stressed and have lost their houses.
>
> I need to give a khutbah focusing on **patience** for those who lost homes, and the **duty of the rest of the community** to support them.
---
## Customizing for your audience *(continued)*
> Looking for inspirational stories. Call to action: support, fundraising, patience.
>
> Use **Ansari**; feel free to search the web for AUTHENTIC information.
*Followed by back-and-forth on stories and balance — Claude + Ansari.*
---
## Which do you think will result in a better khutbah?
- Second has much better context
- Has it using AI for ideation and knowledge
- Second one has clear call to action — the jama'ah **behaves differently** (Niyyah)
- It ties to what just happened — that lands harder.
- The imam went back and forth until it felt right.
---
## Context is critical
- Don’t focus on prompts – how do I phrase the request.
- Focus on context
- Information that helps the AI make better decisions
- Key examples of context
- The audience
- Recent events in the community
- Recent events in the news
- Time of year (AIs are not good at time generally)
- Previous talks
- Your relationship with the audience
---
## Claude’s template for context
- "My audience is: [demographics]
- Current local issue: [what's happening]
- Community makeup: [converts/born Muslims/youth percentage]
- Recent khutbahs covered: [avoid repetition]
- Speaking style needed: [academic/conversational/mixed]"
---
## Using AI for ideation
- Can come up with topics in a series
- Example: Juz highlights – pick one verse from every chapter
- Can come up with stories or hadith to reinforce a particular theme
- Can work to your limits: how long, how many sessions
---
## Making it yours — Your style
- Your style
- You can teach AI your style by giving it samples
- Example: I gave Claude 4 of my articles and asked it to summarize my style
- Then when you ask it to generate a khutbah, include its summary and say “this is my style”
---
## Making it yours — Your khutbah format
- How you like to give khutbahs
- Example:
- Start with a story that really leaves an impact
- Then substantiate with Qur’an and Sunnah
- Then the second khutbah I always focus on 3 calls to action
---
## Important: Verifying sources
- Use the right tools
- Use askansari.ai, or usul.ai when searching for hadith
- If using a general AI:
- Don’t assume that the hadith actually exists unless you’ve verified it
- Don’t assume the translation of a quran’ic verse is accurate
- Don’t assume that the reference to a verse is correct
---
## Verifying sources *(continued)*
- Read every word. EVERY. WORD.
- The worst place to discover an error or issue is on the minbar
**AI is not accountable. You are.**
---
## Live Demo
- Audience: suggest a topic for a khatirah / khutbah
- What is the context
---
# Deep Dive: Research
---
## Doing Research + Answering Others’ Questions
- Many of you research topics you care about.
- And your community asks you a lot of questions.
- How can we use AI to help do both of these things?
---
## AI is an extremely powerful research tool
- Ability to process information is huge
- It can search your own documents in seconds.
---
# Ansari — A Case Study
---
## A Different Perspective
- Most talk about AI and the family is about the **harm**
- Today: **a positive case study**
- AI used to **deepen** religious practice, not undermine it
---
## What is Ansari?
- **askansari.ai** — started June 2023
- Over **140,000 conversations** to date
- AI assistant for learning about Islam
- Grounded in authentic Islamic sources
- Web, iOS, Android, WhatsApp
**The Name**
- "Ansar" (أنصار) = "helpers" in Arabic
- Specifically: the People of Madinah who welcomed the Prophet Muhammad as a refugee
- Ansari = a helper for people seeking to understand Islam
---
## The Numbers
- **~290/day** average (peak: 450/day in Feb–Mar 2026)
- **25+ languages**
- **84% positive** satisfaction
- **65%** of answers cite primary sources
---
## Growth
---
## How People Use Ansari
*Based on a random sample of 10,000 conversations*
1. **Understanding** (42.9%) — Quran, Hadith, history, theology, language
2. **Practice** (37.5%) — fiqh rulings, halal/haram, ethics in modern life
3. **Content Prep** (9.8%) — sermons, lesson plans, trivia, youth activities
4. **Support** (3.6%) — grief, anxiety, loneliness, life crises
5. **Misc** (6.2%) — off-topic, greetings, feedback
---
## Understanding (42.9%)
**The biggest category: learning about Islam**
- "Explain Surah Fatiha to children aged 10–12 years old"
- "Hadith about tawakkul (trust in God) — like a bird"
- "How to answer these questions for kids: 'Where does Allah live?', 'Do non-Muslims go to hell?'"
- "List all the stories of Prophet Musa from the Quran in order with lessons"
- "Why doesn't Allah increase my iman (faith)?"
---
## Practice (37.5%)
**Applying Islam to daily life**
- "There is a platter of sandwiches here. Egg, prawn, but also ham. Can I eat the prawn/egg from the same platter?"
- "Can I go to the dentist and take anesthesia during fasting?"
- "Is it Islamically okay to get answers for your fiqh questions from a chatbot?"
- "How does one motivate their teenage students who proudly say that they don't pray?"
- People use it during pilgrimages (Hajj/Umrah) for real-time guidance, including me
---
## Content Prep (9.8%)
**Imams and teachers as power users**
- "I need a khutbah that focuses on love for one another as a means of healing a divided community"
- "Teach students aged 12–16 about hadith and Imam Bukhari's legacy. Create a 2-hour lesson"
- "I am 9 years old. Please ask me 10 quiz questions about Islam"
- "Help me write an Instagram post about the 5 most beloved deeds to Allah"
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## Support (3.6%)
**Small in numbers. Powerful in impact.**
- "Please, what can I do for a Muslim sister going through depression?"
- "Remind me of all the benefits of hosting"
- "Give me 3 reasons why Allah blesses those who are patient and persevere"
- Me, 2am, kids kept me awake all night: *"Man that was rough."* Ansari responded with exactly the right verses
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## Feedback Given Through the UI
1,914 total entries. **85.5% positive**, 11.8% negative, **2.7% red flag** (28 cases).
Red flags include:
- **Quran meaning inverted** — said "Allah forbade trade and permitted usury" (opposite of 2:275)
- **Offensive inference** — assumed user lacked sincerity based on question
- **Wrong dates** — gave 2025 Ramadan dates when asked in 2026
Most negative feedback: stuck/loops (~15), incorrect info (~12), didn't answer (~8)
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## The System Prompt (aka SOUL.md)
The instruction that shapes Ansari's behavior:
- **Identity**: multilingual Islamic assistant, Sunni tradition
- **Sources**: only cite Quran, Hadith, and Fiqh Encyclopedia from search results
- **Attribution**: never attribute statements to scholars without specific evidence
- **Hadith caution**: only use Hadith found in search results; if unsure, say so
- **Controversial topics**: present main positions objectively, highlight consensus first, don't declare one position correct when legitimate disagreement exists
- **Obligatory/prohibited matters**: must be backed by direct evidence
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## 10,000 Personalities
An expert in the field described it this way:
> *"There are 10,000 personalities living inside those 500 billion parameters. The system prompt is how you choose which one it is."*
The system prompt defines the **"soul"**.
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## Validation: Three Approaches
1. **BATIK** — 100 multiple-choice questions from real user queries
- GPT-3.5: 77% → GPT-4: 95% → **Ansari v3: 100%**
2. **Dar ul Qasim Exams** (Chicago Islamic institute, zero-shot)
- Intro to Quran: **80%**
- Theology exam: **78%**
3. **Ramadan Validation** (34 questions, human-rated 1–5)
- Overall: **4.41/5** — 100% helpful, 0 hallucinations, 82% used references
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## New: Benchmarks!
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## What's Next: Keeping People Coming Back
**Two audiences:**
- **Specialists** (imams, teachers): daily users, loyal
- **Average Muslims**: come once, leave
**Strategy**: don't wait for them to come to Ansari.
- **Ansari Skill**: available inside Claude, ChatGPT — no separate app needed
- **A short lesson each day**, at your level
- Not just answering — proactively teaching
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## Conclusions — Ansari Case Study
- People **do** use AI to practise and understand their deen better
- You can define the **"soul" of an AI** through the system prompt
- With RAG, you can build systems that **rarely if ever hallucinate**
- 140K+ conversations prove the demand is real
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# Preparing the Community for AI — More
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## Using AI in the Community — Communications
- Auto-translated newsletters, khutab, social media posts
- Reach underserved sub-communities
- Summarized or targeted posts to different age groups (e.g. emphasizing programs for teens)
- Simultaneously generate a press release for event, a WhatsApp message, an Instagram post
- Reaching out to different age groups and demographics
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## Using AI in the Community — Programs & Activism
- Activity design: workshops, summer programs, long-running halaqa
- Community activism
- Organizing and repetitive admin work (emails, announcements, reminders, newsletters, or program outlines)
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## Data and Privacy
- Data is digital gold
- “If you don’t pay for the product, you are the product”
- Find a company (e.g. Proton, Kagi, Brave) that has privacy in terms of service. Even better, one that doesn’t store your data at all.
- Temporary Mode on ChatGPT, Incognito mode for Gemini
- Advanced option: Self-host an LLM
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# Advanced Techniques
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## Agent Skills
- Skills teach your AI to do new things
- • Skills = plug-in tools that give AI new abilities
- • Example: Add Ansari as a skill to Claude or ChatGPT
- → Now your AI can answer Islamic questions with sources
- • Other examples: web search, calculator, code execution
- • Think of it like apps on your phone — each one adds a new power
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## The prompt for your general AI
- From the research session: the tested prompt that makes your general AI **support your iman**
- The simplest install there is — one paste, per-platform instructions
- **[s.iaser.ai/prompt](https://s.iaser.ai/prompt)** — install it now
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## Claude → Cowork → Code
- **claude.ai** — chat: ask, draft, discuss
- **Claude Cowork** — "Claude Code without the code": agentic, multi-step work on your files and documents (all paid plans)
- **Claude Code** — the most powerful AI engine today, not just for code (learning curve)
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## Gemini Spark
- Google's **24/7 personal agent** — keeps working in the background, even with your laptop closed
- Deeply integrated with **Gmail, Docs and Slides**; handles recurring tasks
- Google AI Ultra subscribers
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## Agentic revolution — What agents are
- Agents are AI that are continually running
- They Reflect: Am I working well?
- They Plan: How do I accomplish this goal?
- They use tools: Search is one tool but what other ways can it interact with the world?
- They talk to one another
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## App Building: Level 1 — Artifacts
- Claude and Gemini can generate interactive apps in chat
- • Describe what you want → get a working app instantly
- • Great for: calculators, quizzes, simple tools
- • Easy to iterate — just ask for changes
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## App Building: Level 2 — Replit
- AI-powered development for full applications
- • Describe your app in plain English → Replit builds it
- • Deploy to the web with one click
- • No coding required
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