Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil as an Ethical Algorithm; Establishing a Quran-Based Paradigm for the Ethical Governance of Artificial Intelligence

The emergence of Artificial General Intelligence and advanced models such as large language models and decision-support systems has brought about profound transformations in contemporary human life. These technologies, with their capabilities in processing massive datasets, machine learning, automated decision-making, and behavioral prediction, are being deployed across various domains including medicine, education, transportation, communications, and public administration. While they have significantly increased the speed, accuracy, and accessibility of services, they have also introduced new ethical and social challenges. Algorithmic discrimination, privacy violations, misuse of personal data, dissemination of misinformation, hate speech propagation, and erosion of public trust
are among the most critical of these challenges. Given the extensive and profound impact
of these systems on both individual and collective life, the development of a robust, sustainable, and proactive ethical framework for their governance has become an inescapable necessity. This article begins by highlighting the limitations of conventional Western approaches—such as general principles based on liberal democracy, human rights, and utilitarianism—and demonstrates that these models are often plagued by vagueness, reactivity, lack of solid metaphysical foundations, and an inability to provide coherent implementation mechanisms. In contrast, the present study seeks to offer an ethical and governance-oriented model for artificial intelligence by turning to a comprehensive religious source: the Holy Quran. The central research problem is how the Islamic duty of enjoining good and forbidding evil can be elevated from an individual ethical obligation
to a systemic ethical algorithm capable of guiding artificial intelligence. The primary objective of the article is to formulate a Quran-based paradigm for the ethical governance of artificial intelligence. The authors aim to demonstrate that enjoining good and forbidding evil, when reinterpreted in a modern and systematic framework, can function as an ethical algorithm that directs intelligent technologies toward justice, human dignity, social responsibility, and continuous reform. A secondary goal is to transform technology from a merely passive tool susceptible to domination and exploitation into an uplifting and ethics-driven instrument—one that not only prevents harm but actively promotes good, reduces corruption, and strengthens public trust. Ultimately, the article seeks to show that the teachings of the Holy Quran, particularly the duty of enjoining good and forbidding evil, possess the potential to serve as the foundation for a practical operational system for AI ethics. The core research question is: How can a framework for the ethical governance of artificial intelligence be established based on Quranic teachings, especially the principle of enjoining good and forbidding evil? More precisely, the article examines whether this religious duty can transcend its traditional, primarily individual scope and be reconstructed as a dynamic, systemic, and implementable algorithm for the ethical management of intelligent technologies. It also explores the theoretical foundations of this ethical algorithm, its stages, and how it can practically contribute to reducing the social and ethical harms caused by artificial intelligence. The research method is descriptive-analytical. Drawing upon Quranic sources, Islamic interpretations, and related texts, the article first clarifies the concepts of ma‘ruf (good) and munkar (evil), then analyzes this teaching in relation to emerging issues in the ethics of technology and AI governance. Within this framework, foundational principles such as justice, human dignity, rationality, social responsibility, gradualism, proportionality, and balance between rationality and spirituality are introduced as the pillars of the proposed Quran-based paradigm. Structurally, the article examines enjoining good and forbidding evil as an ethical algorithm with distinct levels and operational stages—including monitoring and input, detection and classification, and other practical phases formulated in the article as a cyclical and hierarchical process. The study concludes that the doctrine of enjoining good and forbidding evil, when reread in light of the needs of the technological age, has the capacity to become an effective and practical ethical algorithm for AI governance. By relying on the Holy Quran, this model not only addresses the shortcomings of purely legalistic or utilitarian Western approaches but also offers a comprehensive, meaning-centered, and operational framework for guiding technology toward human and divine objectives. In this paradigm, artificial intelligence is not viewed as an external threat but as a trainable and ethically directable tool that can serve justice, dignity, and social reform. In other words, enjoining good and forbidding evil, as an ethical algorithm, has the potential to elevate the technological ecosystem beyond mere technical functionality and transform it into a domain for realizing responsibility, human excellence, and ethics-based governance.