Islamic Ethics and AI: An Evaluation of Existing Approaches to AI using Trusteeship Ethics

Abstract Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are revolutionising key sectors such as healthcare, finance, and governance, while raising ethical challenges, including algorithmic bias, privacy violations, and environmental sustainability. Dominant Western ethical paradigms, such as Luciano Floridi’s Information Ethics, emphasise procedural integrity and transparency but often lack spiritual and metaphysical grounding prevalent in global traditions. Most approaches to Islamic ethics for AI have employed Maqasid al-Shariah (objectives of Islamic law) and Qawaid Fiqhiyya (legal maxims), that apply legal principles to ethical questions but face limitations in addressing the complexities of emerging technologies especially that they, initially, were developed to address problems in Islamic law and not in Ethics. This paper introduces the prospects of Taha Abdurrahman’s I’timāni (trusteeship) framework as a unified ethical model for AI technologies. Rooted in the concept of divine trust (amana), the framework integrates three foundational covenants—Ontological, Epistemological, and Existential—offering a comprehensive vision of human responsibility toward God, knowledge, and creation. This approach provides ways to prioritise moral accountability with actionable governance strategies, as we demonstrate its practical applicability. We show that from the Islamic perspective, a philosophy of ethics approach is not only more appropriate, but more promising and comprehensive than ones based on jurisprudential rulings, as combating the ethical concerns of data-driven AI in a neoliberal environment requires an overhaul in worldview with cross-cultural respect and care for all.