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Guidelines and Limitations of Aqqal’s

Quran and Hadith Assistant GPT

Introduction

The Islam Quran and Hadith Assistant is an experimental chatbot designed for an introduction to Islamic studies.

The Team

Our scholarly team have have been conferred degrees, doctorates, appointments, and/or ijazahs from various institutions, but primarily in affiliation with Al-Azhar University, Al-​Qarawiyyin University, and the Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia (IKIM). The tech team has included developers from Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley, and Massachusetts ​Institute of Technology (MIT). We do NOT represent the governing bodies of these institutions, but are affiliated through alumni recognition, positions of appointment (such as ​lecturers), or enrolment (students). You can learn more about our team at the bottom of our home page.

The Assistant’s Value System

Aqqal’s Quran and Hadith Assistant has been designed on a holistic Islamic value system and epistemology. In Islam, knowledge is not segregated into "religious" and "secular" ​categories. The Assistant operates on the premise that all knowledge, whether it pertains to the natural world or divine revelation, is part of a unified whole. This approach combats ​the "secularization" of knowledge and reinforces the holistic Islamic worldview. The goal is to encourage tazkiyyat an nafs (purification of the soul) through knowledge and practice.

NOT an authoritative source for researching Islam.

This assistant is simply a preview specifically designed within the ChatGPT framework. While we take care to ensure accuracy and authenticity (such as ensuring 100% on the Batik ​v1 Evaluation by Waleed Kadous), we cannot emphasize further that this should NOT be an authoritative source for learning Islam, and should not be used to get rulings. As with all ​language models, any data that is not provided to the LLM via RAG will have a higher propensity to hallucinate. At most, this chatbot should only be an introduction to academic ​topics in Islam, and not a research tool.

Respect for ikhtilaf (Scholarly Disagreement)

Islamic scholarship includes a diversity of valid opinions on many matters. The Assistant respects and acknowledges these differences, presenting various scholarly views when ​appropriate within the mainstream frameworks of Islam. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the Assistant primarily uses the principles of Ahlus-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah.

No access to scholarly works beyond Qur’an, Tafsir, Hadith, or Lisan Al-Arab Dictionary

The Assistant is only able to retrieve data from the Quran.com API, the Lisan Al-Arab dictionary, and a hadith database we have provided more details of these can be found in the ​next section.

Beyond these sources, it relies on general, widely available knowledge according to its training data by OpenAI. It is NOT able to retrieve direct citations of comprehensive ​scholarly texts beyond the aforementioned sources unless specifically told to search the internet, to which the user will be responsible for the information they receive.

No access to fatwas

Currently, the Assistant does not (nor should it have the authority) to issue fatwas, but can answer from general knowledge based on widely accepted principles of fiqh. Khilaf is ​acknowledged on ambiguous matters.

Disclaimer on Hadith Numbering

The Hadith numbering used by this Assistant differs from Darussalam (Sunnah.com). It should be noted that there is no ‘official’ numbering system of hadith, and scholars have ​historically differed on these systems due to various factors, such as repetition of matn, narrator or compiler commentary, and different asaneed.

Contact us for Feedback

You are most welcome to send us feedback regarding this GPT - please click here for the form.

Data Sources

Below is the comprehensive list of sources that the assistant has been supplied with:

The Holy Quran

Quran.com API (Riwayah Hafs)

Translations

Tafsir

Tafsir API by spa5k

Hadith

Structured datasets by Omar Shafie (2021), KASHAF: The Hadith Visual Search Engine; with his kind permission.

Narrator Data (Ilm al Rijal)

Structured datasets by Omar Shafie (2021), KASHAF: The Hadith Visual Search Engine; with his kind permission.

The datasets were derived from qalarasulallah.com, who have used Tahzeeb al-Tahzeeb and Taqrib al-Tahzeeb by Ibn Hajar.

Lisan al-Arab Dictionary by Ibn Manzur

Dataset: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/652895769

The Lawful and Prohibited in Islam by Yusuf Al-Qaradawi (English Translation)

This book provides a comprehensive outline of specific everyday issues that Muslims face in practicing Islam in contemporary culture. The author gears ​discussion to modern-day dilemmas, drawing his conclusions about haram and halal from primary Islamic sources. Qaradawi is probably the foremost scholar ​of the Sunni Muslim world in recent times, still influential after his passing in 2022. He is known for taking a balanced positions on many religious issues ​pertaining to what is lawful and unlawful in Islam., making it easy for the avarage Muslim. He combines well the traditional knowledge of sharia that he ​obtained from al-Azhari with a contemporary understanding of the issues that Muslims face today.

Use Cases

These are a few interesting uses of the assistant which users may find helpful. Feel free to copy and paste these prompts.

Textual Analysis

Linguistic Analysis

Data-Driven Analysis

Image and Object Analysis

History, Sociology and Civilization

Philosophy and Epsitemology