Friday Post 14

By Shofi Ahmed

Islam shines on all fronts. Whether the subject matter is social, personal, educational, professional, arts, fine arts, science or metaphysical Islam shines light on the entire spectrum of an individual and social life. There is no doubt about that. It’s a common belief of the Muslims.

Nonetheless, we can be invited to prove or demonstrate how does Islam sparkles in science and arts, especially in our era when both science and arts are roaming on a spanking high. Such calls are not new. In Islam it has happened before. As in our story the sheikh took a challenge to show that the Qur’an resists fire, it doesn’t burn.

Now due to the technical panache our time is called the digital age. Age of data science where it’s sprawling into. At a time when we can tap into the world on our mobile phone. We can talk to the other end of the planet without lifting a finger. Not only that, we can talk live with our astronauts in space. Not to mention the amazing internet. It’s hard to think what it can’t do and what we can’t find in it.

Besides it’s a gigantic technological, business, office work wonder. That a little CPU driven computer does in a few moments. Thinking Islamically, we have a big share in this magic internet pie too. For example in a split second we can tap into the internet and delve into the plethora of the Quran and Hadis. In a glance we can find out about salah, prayers in the Quran. Much more we can dip into and do extensive research without moving our eyes from just one computer screen.

What did our beloved prophet, peace be upon him, say about charity? A smile is also a charity. We can find it by just googling it. Besides many other Hadis we can read and browse on one mobile or laptop screen. Choice is yours. Therefore, it’s fairly understandable. Now the challenge, demand to see how Islam excels in light of this roaming technical era could be different.

Let’s look at a scenario of our modern digital age. With a view to shine on a light of Islam on its frontier In Shaa Allah. So to speak, the engine of the digital age is the computer. How a computer works, it’s indeed very technical and scientific. That’s understandable. The back end of how it works is a subject of machine learning. It’s for technical engineers to work with. However what it produces on the front end the internet content is for everybody. It’s for the public. One doesn’t need to be a technical nerd to read it or to work with it.

When we tap into the internet mainly we see content. There are 2.5 quintillion bytes of content generated everyday. There is a high volume of the text contents are AI (artificial intelligence) tools generated, reproduced and rewritten. AI tools can generate and re-write amazing contents. These are used to spin contents, which means that it can help generate alternatives for the original text. And these tools generate billions of texts everyday.

One might wonder. A question of our contemporary time can be: can a much sophisticated AI tool spin a verse of the Qur’an? Just one single verse!

In Shaa Allah continues.