An Educator’s Perspective
By Raudah M. Yunus
Jul/Aug 26
Misuse of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a global problem, not one that is specific to Islamic schools or the United States. Fierce debates rage across institutions as teachers helplessly watch students rely on AI writing tools for drafting their essays and completing their assignments and projects.
In the earliest days of AI, discussions around this technology centered on how to prevent students from using AI for schoolwork or how to ban AI altogether. But educators and school administrators are beginning to realize that banning AI is a losing battle. AI is here to stay and will only grow in scope and complexity. The only practical way of living with AI is to navigate its use in a nuanced, intelligent, and ethical way.
Understanding the Consequences of AI
While AI has countless benefits, its detriment cannot be overemphasized. There is growing evidence in scientific literature on AI’s paradoxical nature: it can have both negative and positive impacts on students’ cognition and academic performance depending on how it is used. What educators are witnessing today, however, is primarily the abuse of AI.
This is nothing surprising given that human nature inclines towards convenience and shortcuts. AI provides just that. Teachers are frustrated for several reasons; students are increasingly depending on AI tools and seem to be losing basic skills such as spelling, writing, and basic calculations. AI’s ability to summarize, quickly gather information from a wide range of sources, and simplify a complex language means students no longer need to perform the most basic task in knowledge seeking: reading. Where reading stops, the crisis in knowledge begins.
What We Cannot Lose
Reading is fundamental to acquiring knowledge. When one stops reading, one stops learning. There is a difference between the slow, immersive, traditional reading that we used to do versus the (often summarized) reading done on a screen or through digital platforms.
This is not to say that reading digitally has no value; e-books and numerous digital platforms have played a tremendous role in storing, preserving, and transporting information and knowledge across the globe. However, the reading that youth and students commonly do today is of a very different quality.
For the most part, reading has become a brief activity that is diminished in depth and complexity, and devoid of intellectual struggle. The common tendency today is to consume processed or abridged materials that are broken down into summaries and bullet points. Consequently, students scan through key points instead of reading complete documents. While this saves time, it reinforces the shortening of attention spans by rewarding speed and brevity. This is contrary to the benefits of actual reading during which one focuses for longer periods, grapples with complex texts, and learns to prioritize and organize arguments through cognitive exertion.
The Art of Writing
Frequent utilization of AI writing tools can greatly reduce students’ writing abilities especially when they are used to replace, and not augment, writing skills. Writing entails multiple cognitive processes. One must plan, organize, outline, and create the essay skeleton before they can actually write.
And the actual drafting itself is rarely a linear process; a good writer re-reads the first draft many times, revises, edits, re-reads again, and finalizes. It is a time consuming, yet highly intellectually-rewarding exercise. Writing is known to enhance one’s ability to structure and systematize thought, express views with clarity, and minimize errors or slips that often occur while speaking. As such, losing writing skills is the second greatest harm AI can do to students who use AI to write for them, and not with them.
What Schools Must Do
Considering the harms of AI, schools cannot afford to ignore this phenomenon. A comprehensive policy considering this complex technology is urgently needed – one that governs how school administrators, teachers, and students can approach the use of AI.
For Islamic schools, this plan must guide AI use in a manner that aligns with Islamic adab (etiquette), while maximizing benefit and minimizing harm. A school’s AI policy should not be exclusively about what students can or cannot do, but should also provide a broader ethical framework on navigating this tool with wisdom, caution, and excellence (ihsan).
To date, not many schools have articulated AI policies. The number is, however, slowly growing as administrators are faced with AI-related issues. Existing policies generally focus on a set of best practices such as seeking community input, building flexibility into the policy, including data protection guidelines, highlighting inbuilt biases within AI, and pairing school policy with training and professional development.
AI Use in Islamic Schools
While these are valuable tips to be considered by Islamic schools when designing their own AI blueprint, there are additional aspects that can be integrated into AI policies for Islamic schools. Against this backdrop, Islamic schools ought to consider three elements when planning their AI policies.
First, Islamic schools are not like public schools, or other educational institutions that are devoid of religious orientations. Almost all Islamic schools in the U.S. incorporate a spiritual dimension in their vision and mission, making the cultivation of Islamic virtue and character in students a huge priority.
As the AI policy is likely to be a cross-cutting theme in all school activities, it needs to be aligned with the school’s vision, and its goal of character-building. In other words, the policy language and considerations should not be restricted to technicalities such as data protection and privacy, student safety, or guidance as to which platforms are appropriate. Rather, the policy content should be oriented towards helping the school achieve its Islamic goals, beginning with the most essential ingredient: intentionality. An Islamic school should first ask its board and staff members, “Why are we choosing to use AI? And how can we use it in a manner that will realize our bigger, nobler mission?”
Second, Islamic schools should revisit (and perhaps unlearn) the conventional meaning and nature of knowledge seeking. What may appear as seeking knowledge in today’s educational institutions may not necessarily be consistent with how Islam defines knowledge, how it determines and ranks the methods of knowing, or how it upholds the etiquette of acquiring knowledge. Having clarity around these topics will allow schools to delineate the role and use of AI with greater nuance.
For instance, embracing the adab of seeking knowledge may result in a specific way of using AI in the teaching and learning process. Additionally, a firm comprehension of what knowledge means – and how it differs from information – may yield insights into the best use of AI as opposed to reaching out to traditional human sources. Relatedly, Islamic schools may also want to make a clear distinction between learning outcomes that can be achieved through smart use of AI and those that are better reached without AI involvement.
Third, while boundaries exist to demarcate smart, responsible use of AI from AI abuse and academic dishonesty, Islamic schools should adopt moderation. The widely-used AI tools today are a relatively new phenomenon. As much as school administrators and teachers are still trying to wrap their heads around this technology, students, too, are struggling to understand them while learning through trial and error.
Young learners’ levels of spiritual and intellectual maturity cannot be relied upon to fully grasp the difference between right and wrong. In addition, the temptation facing our children today is far greater than what we could have imagined 10 or 20 years ago. Given this harsh reality, schools should not view their AI policy primarily as a method to legitimize punishment, but rather as a window of opportunity to educate both teachers and learners. Moderation also means accommodating flexibility and change, while accepting that a successful implementation of AI policy in school cannot be rushed. It is a gradual process that comes with reiteration.
While AI policy is a necessity today for Islamic schools and beyond, the use and misuse of AI is growing exponentially and will continue to rise. As such, Islamic schools and institutions of higher education must rise to this challenge. Without being proactive, we will be left behind in a constant reactive mode – waiting for problems to happen and then scrambling for solutions.
When a growing number of Islamic schools begin implementing AI policies, Muslim educators, school administrators, scholars, and policymakers can come together to compare and deliberate over best practices that can further guide our community’s response to this educational challenge across the globe.
Raudah M. Yunus is an educator, researcher, and writer based in the United States.
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