Looking at end of times narrations in Islam, João Silva Jordão argues that the Dajjal will need Artificial Intelligence to perform his false miracles. Rather than looking at a scenario where AI goes rogue, perhaps we should be looking at how AI could assist a minority of people, or maybe one man alone, to bring catastrophic plans to fruition with as much efficacy as possible.
Editorial Note: This article was written with minimal assistance from Artificial Intelligence
1. Atheism is the Religion of Middle Management, the Vanguard Tends to be Religious
Atheistic apologetics and discourse has been very effective in making the general population believe that they are tendentially governed by atheists. In truth, the supposedly “secular” West has never truly dismantled the institutional religious apparatuses which have always had a role in the governing of any society. More specifically, if we are to take the narrative as read regarding the role of Freemasonry within latter day nation state / deep state contexts in the West as throughout many countries across the world, Freemasonry itself, is an imminently ‘religious’ institution, in the understanding of religion in Westernised contexts. Religion in this scenario, is an essential part of the State apparatus, and it indeed sees itself as at least the partial guardian of the responsibility of keeping some degree of balance between key opposing forces that operate within and indeed rule our society. At the center of this consideration is the central Freemasonic symbol of the Keystone.
As the Symbol Dictionary (unknown date) puts it, referring to the meaning and importance of the Keystone in Freemasonic lore:
In masonry, the keystone is the stone that holds together a stone arch. The oddly-shaped keystone is a feat of early engineering, allowing builders to incorporate windows, doorways, and other building elements to a building without sacrificing strength. The main benefit of this innovation is to allow for much more natural light in a structure. (Symbol Dictionary, unknown date)
Therefore we can say that the Keystone represents the need for the existence of a pre-existing framework that allows for conflict within civilized and acceptable bounds so that opposing forces can meet in the middle without this shock leading for both to collapse in on themselves. This is, at heart, is the role of religion in any societal or system of governance- to provide direction and balance to the differing, often opposing forces that operate within any civilization.
Albert Pike (ibid, pp. 7) speaks thusly about Freemasonry’s role within societies that it operates in:
“Force, unregulated or il-regulated, is not only wasted in the void, like that of gunpowder burned in the open air, and steam unconfined by science; but, striking in the dark, and its blows meeting only the air, they recoil and bruise itself. It is destruction and ruin. It is the volcano, the earthquake, the cyclone;-not growth and progress. It is Polyphemus blinded, striking at random, and falling headlong among the sharp rocks by the impetus of his own blows…
Then there are sublime conquests. Thought is a force, and philosophy should be an energy, finding its aim and its effects in the amelioration of mankind. The two great motors are Truth and Love. When all these Forces are combined, and guided by the Intellect, and regulated by the RULE of Right, and Justice, and of combined and systematic movement and effort, the great revolution prepared for by the ages will begin to march. The POWER of the Deity Himself is in equilibrium with His WISDOM. Hence the only results are HARMONY.
Another important figure of contemporary Masonic thinking is Manly Palmer Hall (1928, pp. 1), who speaks thus of the general population’s inability to deal with complex themes and problems:
“When confronted with a problem involving the use of the reasoning faculties, individuals of strong intellect keep their poise, and seek to reach a solution by obtaining facts bearing upon the question. Those of immature mentality, on the other hand, when similarly confronted, are overwhelmed. While the former may be qualified to solve the riddle of their own destiny, the latter must be led like a flock of sheep and taught in simple language. They depend almost entirely upon the ministrations of the shepherd. The Apostle Paul said that these little ones must be fed with milk, but that meat is the food of strong men. Thoughtlessness is almost synonymous with childishness, while thoughtfulness is symbolic of maturity.
There are, however, but few mature minds in the world; and thus it was that the philosophic-religious doctrines of the pagans were divided to meet the needs of these two fundamental groups of human intellect–one philosophic, the other incapable of appreciating the deeper mysteries of life. To the discerning few were revealed the esoteric, or spiritual, teachings, while the unqualified many received only the literal, or exoteric, interpretations.”
Masonic arrogance and the elitism it cultivates in its members should be a cause for great concern given the tendency for judges and political figures who supposedly represent the population to be members of Freemasonry. The general lack of democracy in societies that claim to be “democratic” in part stems from the lack of respect that elites have for the governed, and no philosophy solidifies this lack of respect as effectively as Masonic philosophy.
Freemasonry and its ubiquitous presence throughout the State apparatuses the world over, but specially in the supposed “secular” Western countries, is perhaps one of the biggest pointers and evidence to the concept that atheism is the religion of middle managers, however, upper management needs solid ideas that guide them and give them both objectives to strive towards as well as general philosophies to inform their methods.
One could even argue that Late Stage Capitalism is quickly morphing into a sort of sacrificial neo-paganism- the 1927 Fritz Lang classic Metropolis was awfully prescient in its depiction of the modern machinery and industry being covertly a sacrificial system, a modern version of Moloch to which people are fed.
And far from being secular, in the West, there are many religiously-minded conspiratorial councils akin to Freemasonry and which fulfil a similar role, acting without transparency or real authority, but which ultimately hold huge sway both over daily management as well as large undertakings.
1.1. Elites are Becoming More Overtly Religious and USA Technology Companies are no Longer Hiding Their Military Connections
The tendency of certain sectors of the so-called “elites” towards a theistically influenced elitism as well as the general tendency to use religious analogies and instruments in order to influence their thinking and action is increasingly no longer confined to the secrecy or behind the scenes conspiratorialism. Perhaps one the best recent examples of this is a fascinating talk in the Hoover Institution by Peter Thiel where he focuses on the parallels between Christianity, and Christian eschatology, that is to say, Christian beliefs about the end times, and the capabilities, opportunities and dangers posed by modern technology. Peter Thiel (2025) says in his interview that “there certainly are dimensions of the technology which have become extremely powerful in the last century or two, that have an apocalyptic dimension and perhaps it’s strange not to try and relate it to the Biblical tradition… if nuclear weapons can rain down fire and brimstone and destroy the world and then we have a Biblical tradition, it doesn’t that this is inevitably going to happen, but something like this might well happen if humans are left to their own devices, should we at least be asking questions which and figure out ways for these things to inform one another”. Thiel (2025b) also goes on to say that “If the Antichrist were to come to power, it would be by talking about the Armageddon… I think a natural candidate for the Antichrist is the United States”.
And more recently, a company founded and led by the same Peter Thiel, Palantir, was one of four companies chosen by the US military to take part in a new initiative, “Detachment 201”. This initiative has given the military rank of lieutenant to executives from four key technology companies, namely, Palantir, Meta, OpenAI and Thinking Machines Lab. Though worrying, this single event is almost anecdotal when juxtaposed with the flurry of developments which indicate one key development and trend- the convergence of key US technology companies with the US military as an institution, but also with its geopolitical and domestic goals. Though much has been said about the role of the military and “security” apparatus in funding and taking part in the foundation of key US technology companies, these new developments and initiatives such as Detachment 201 mark a new step in the unashamed sponsoring and influence that the US military has over key technology companies.
The only surprising factor here is, of course, the open, transparent and brazen way in which these inductions into the US military were conducted. Virtually all key American technology companies are in a way, and have always been, facades for the American military. The first and perhaps most glaring example is Oracle, the quintessential digital data management company, which began as a CIA research project in 1975, of which eventual founder Larry Ellison was a member, with the CIA then becoming Oracle’s first customer as soon as it started acting like a mere private company. The CIA even has a publicly available registry of Project Oracle which it calls ORACLE Mass Storage. System. Similarly, a key Google Maps component relating to satellite imagery technology, “Keyhole”, was acquired by Google, supposedly a private company, from the US military itself. The CIA-linked investment fund In-Q-Tel also had a role in the early financing of Facebook.
Given all these elements, it is not overly fanciful nor speculative to hypothesize a situation whereby specific USA technology companies or even some specific capabilities and technologies can be commandeered by a would-be global dictator, and that they could hypothetically be used to horrific effect by an individual and his entourage with tragic consequences.
1.2. The AI Assistant Danger
Frank Herbert (1965, pp. 17) ominously says in his seminal science fiction work, Dune:
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them”
Ray Bradbury (2012) also insightfully pointed out in an interview with WIRED Magazine:
“I’ve tried for 20 years at least to say I’m not afraid of machines, I’m not afraid of the computer, I don’t think the robots are taking over. I think the men who play with toys have taken over. And if we don’t take the toys out of their hands, we are fools.”
Most people are afraid of autonomous AI going rogue and ultimately working against mankind’s best interests. But perhaps AI will be more dangerous as an assistant to a minority of people, or maybe to one man alone, who will use it to finally be able to bring plans to fruition with as much efficacy and as little unintended effects as possible, all due to AI’s capacity for calculating and analysing extremely complex socio-human systems. If indeed AI gains meaningful and effective knowledge of complex systems, it can perhaps calculate the consequences of certain actions or even provoke certain outcomes by proposing actions that human intelligence would then have a hard time linking back to its actual, initial cause.
What follows is an exploration of the concept that AI could indeed be a tremendous danger, at a potentially global scale, if a general AI with sufficient capacity and reach were to be used efficiently by a political faction and even potentially an individual operative. If a general assistant AI could assist an individual by simultaneously being able to command advanced weaponry as well as intervene in specific situations, these could be used so as to make it seem that the individual operative giving orders to the assistant AI has some sort of mystical, inexplicable power.
This essay will look at some Islamic prophecies that offer very specific scenarios and the ways in which a general assistant AI, paired with other, pre-existing technologies, could make the fulfilment of prophecies possible without having to invoke miracles or otherwise incomprehensible artifices.
For the more attentive observers, the Islamic prophecy regarding the Dajjal as a whole is fast becoming not only one of the most fascinating but also most eerily possible and now imminently feasible scenarios that Islamic prophecy has to offer. The main reason for this is simple and obvious- the incredible rate of technological advancements and the specific capabilities and characteristics which they unleash upon the world paired with the relative lack of capacity of the general population to truly understand the underlying mechanism and methods that said technology uses. What follows is a speculative though one hopes thought-provoking study of how advanced AI might be used by a person the coming of which has been prophesied by Islamic eschatology in order to advance his own agenda, simultaneously offering a rational explanation to some of the deeds attributed to him by accredited Islamic sources.
2. The Technological Means for the Dajjal’s False Miracles Are Coming Into View
2.1. Using Weather Warfare as Blackmail – One of the Dajjal’s Main Weapons Already Exists or is Rumoured to Already Exist
The Hadith in question:
Narrated by An-Nawwas ibn Sam’an al-Kilabi:
“…He (the Dajjal) will come to the people and invite them, and they will believe in him and respond to him. He will command the sky to rain and it will rain, and he will command the earth to bring forth vegetation, and it will do so… Then he will come to some other people and invite them, but they will reject him, so he will leave them, and they will be stricken with drought and famine…”
Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj. Sahih Muslim. Translated by Abdul Hamid Siddiqui. Book 54, Hadith 109 (Hadith 2937a in international numbering). Riyadh: Darussalam.
This hadith describes the Dajjal commanding the sky to rain and the earth to yield vegetation- acts that compel obedience and belief from the nations that he visits. This level of weather manipulation has traditionally been interpreted as having miraculous undertones. However, with today’s rapid technological evolution, it is not entirely implausible to imagine similar results being achieved via technological means.
Rumors and partial disclosures about technologies like HAARP (High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) have circulated for years, with allegations that they can manipulate weather events. Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad openly accused the U.S. of creating droughts in Iran via weather warfare as parts of the US’s continued campaigns to harm and destabilize Iran. While these claims have not been fully verified, they demonstrate the strategic potential of controlling environmental conditions to apply political or psychological pressure on populations- a form of blackmail not unlike that which the Dajjal is prophesied to use.
What makes this possibility even more chilling is the potential integration of AI to calculate environmental vulnerabilities and optimize such interference. An AI-enhanced system could allow a future tyrant to weaponize the weather with surgical precision, enhancing the illusion of divinity or supernatural power. This alignment between modern capabilities and prophetic description blurs the line between miracle and manipulation.
2.2. Could Some of the End Time Earthquakes Potentially Also be Provoked by Human Action?
The Hadith in question:
Narrated Anas bin Malik:
“Ad-Dajjal will come and encamp at a place close to Medina, and then Medina will shake thrice; whereupon every disbeliever and hypocrite will go out from it towards him.”
Al-Bukhari, Muhammad ibn Isma’il. Sahih al-Bukhari. Translated by Muhammad Muhsin Khan. Book 92, Hadith 7124 (Vol. 9, Book 88, Hadith 239 in older U.S. edition). Riyadh: Darussalam.
This Hadith, also found in Sahih Muslim describes Medina shaking three times upon the Dajjal’s arrival, provoking disbelievers and hypocrites to flee. For centuries, this has been understood as a miraculous sign or divine event. However, recent developments in seismic weaponry and geoengineering raise the question: could such events be artificially provoked?
Earthquake-triggering technologies, whether through underground detonations, resonance manipulation, or tectonic stress engineering, have long been whispered about in military circles. Even if many of these claims remain speculative or classified, the mere possibility of human-induced seismic activity is no longer confined to the realm of speculation and science fiction. Reports from seismologists and military analysts confirm that large-scale disruptions can be caused under certain conditions, including fracking, deep underground testing, and even focused electromagnetic pulses.
If AI were to analyze subterranean geodata in real time and execute precisely-timed disturbances, the psychological and geopolitical implications would be enormous. Imagine a world where a tyrant could simulate “divine wrath” on command. To a religiously primed population, this would not only inspire awe but could be used to identify and purge dissenters under the guise of a spiritual sorting mechanism, once again fulfilling the potential use of technology for producing events and phenomena which can be falsely presented, and naively accepted, as miracles.
2.3. Showing Someone Their Deceased Parents – Apparently Anecdotal, and yet Upon Further Reflection, Perhaps the Most Evil of Dajjal’s Ploys
The Hadith in question:
Narrated by Umamah al-Bahili:
“Part of his fitnah will be that he will say to a Bedouin, ‘Do you think that if I resurrect your father and mother for you, you will testify that I am your Lord’ He will say, ‘Yes.’ So two devils will appear to him in the image of his father and mother, saying, ‘O my son, follow him, for he is your Lord.’”
Ibn Majah, Muḥammad ibn Yazid. Sunan Ibn Majah. Hadith 4067.
Graded Sahih by Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani in Ṣaḥiḥ al-Jami al-Saghir, Hadith 7752. Riyadh: Maktabat al-Maʿarif.
It is said that The Dajjal will allegedly be able to make it so that a man whom he may very well never have seen before shows his dead parents right in front of him, as if the Dajjal himself had resuscitated him. Just try to picture that- Two men who have potentially never met, and one of them, trying to convince the other that he is divine and deserving of worship (astaghfirullah), makes his dead parents appear right in front of him. How could this be possible? Though it may, especially when described in such a brutally direct and brief manner, seem not only like an impossibility, but a right-out ridiculous idea that could only be the product of outlandish religious superstitions.
However, if we take into account some very specific technological novelties and their capacities, we may once again extract some clues as to how the Dajjal might fake the appearance of someone’s deceased parents. It is being widely reported by various publications that AI can be used to replicate the voices of dead celebrities for applications such as reading audiobooks, while Wired ponders whether using generative AI to resurrect the dead will create a burden for the living.
Let us also consider that there is another Islamic prophecy relating to the Dajjal which mentions he will have a “floating nail” in front of his left eye.
The hadith in question:
Narrated by Anas ibn Malik:
“The Dajjal is blind in the left eye. His eye looks like a floating grape.”
Al-Bukhari, Muḥammad ibn Ismaʿil. Sahih al-Bukhari. Hadith 7128 (Vol. 9, Book 88, Hadith 241 in older U.S. edition). Translated by Muhammad Muhsin Khan. Riyadh: Dar al-Salam.
This may seem, again, as little more than imaginative and fanciful religious imagery meant to awe the audience. However, one need only remember a now mostly-forgotten product launch that came with a bang but practically disappeared shortly after with hardly a whimper, to potentially try to make sense of what this hadith might refer to. Did we not somewhat recently witness the grand unveiling of a product that looks like a prototype, that is to say, an early, immature version of a “floating nail” that we could all buy and wear? One is talking of course of the Google Glass launch.
Now, let us imagine a device no larger than a thin metallic strip placed beneath the eye, projecting a holographic lens that hovers in the user’s visual field- minimal, sleek, and nearly invisible. Such a device could achieve what the hadith cryptically describes as a “floating nail” in front of the Dajjal’s eye. This may not be metaphor at all, but a literal description of a near-future wearable interface- the symbol of authority, of technological access, and, potentially, of false divinity.
Through such a system, one could not only interact with generative AI in real time, but also project fully rendered 3D holograms of simulated individuals. A sort of Google Glass-type product could also use facial recognition to identify a target, a “mark” if you will, and then scour social media information, to potentially retrieve information about this person’s parents. The Dajjal’s power to show someone their deceased parents, in full voice, movement, and personal detail, would no longer require actual sorcery, nor much less would it represent a miracle. It would simply require an AI trained on enough data alongside technological instruments only slightly more advance than many that are already commercially available. And if this technology were centralized, controlled by a single entity or individual, it would be capable of psychological manipulation at a depth and scale never before seen.
What makes all of this even more sobering is that we are not speaking of speculative or distant technologies- we are surrounded by early-stage examples of them. Pokémon Go familiarized an entire generation with augmented reality by encouraging people to traverse the physical world in pursuit of digital projections. The movie Free Guy explored the merging of digital and physical identities in a playful but prophetic way, where reality is reshaped through immersive layers of meaning only visible to those wearing special glasses. Uber, though not fantastical, is a perfect example of how digital information creates real-world actions- a few taps on a screen summon a physical car to a precise location, a mundane “miracle” we now take for granted.
Quite recently, and in the context of this article’s general speculative efforts, quite ominously, someone invented glasses that allow one to interact with Chat GPT in real time.
3. How a “Secular” Society can End Up Worshipping a Man – Julius Caesar and the Dajjal’s Demonic “Apotheosis”
Let us start with the following basic consideration- There is no such thing as a “Secular State”, only potentially secular governments, and they in turn always fall under the jurisdiction of an elected council. The term “Secular” simply means “Seclorum”, i.e., “of the ages”, i.e., relative to time and space. Governments must deal with matters relative to taxes, food, transportation, but there is always a superior logic at play- if there isn’t, disaster is certain.
Even when discussing the Vatican and the Pontificate, obviously religious institutions, one speaks of the Pope’s “temporal” power. That does not mean the Pope is “secular”, rather, it means that the Vatican and the Pope have both spiritual and temporal power.
All that is possible are exercises in rebranding, such as for example when a society looks to scientists or professors. All, sooner or later, take on the role of the clergy. I make the following claims in the “Religion Has Become a Dirty Word” piece:
“A contemporary philosopher, Slavoj Zizek also quite repeatedly and brilliantly argues in his critique of ideology and its ability to slant our worldview without us noticing it, that paradoxically, the more you think you are free from ideology, the more you find yourself within its grasp. However, this critique has not thus far been sufficiently made in regards to religious ignorance, and to be more specific, the way in which the growth of atheism and the disdain that atheists increasingly show towards religion, both as a phenomenon and as an area of study, makes people all the more susceptible to fall within the grasp of religious bigotry without them even noticing it. We could also say that ‘just because you do not take an interest in religion doesn’t mean religion won’t take an interest in you.’ But the way in which religion affects us, or should we say, takes an interest in us, is much more subtle, and yet at the same time more profound, than the way in which politics does…
There is a direct relationship between the absolute disdain that the new atheism has for religion and the growth of religious illiteracy, even among the supposedly more educated sectors of the population. Paradoxically, instead of promoting an intelligent criticism of religion, new atheism ends up generating hordes of theologically and spiritually alienated people who are even more likely to be recruited by cults and religions, and who will thereafter vehemently deny that they are so much as a little bit influenced by religion…”
Historically, Julius Caesar perhaps best represents and is indeed the personification of this latent spiritual ambition that lies within most, if not all, truly ambitious political rulers: and the Roman Republic and then the Roman Empire were certainly among the more mundane, worldly of Empires. This most famous leader ended his career in a fashion that secular thinking would surely judge to be eccentric, at the very least, and that Abrahamic, therefore including Islamic thinking, would consider blasphemous. It is a little discussed fact that Julius Caesar was flirting very heavily with the concept of being worthy of being worshipped towards the end of his tenure. Let us consider
“On the day of his triumph, the general wore a crown of laurel and an all-purple, gold-embroidered triumphal toga picta (“painted” toga), regalia that identified him as near-divine or near-kingly. In some accounts, his face was painted red, perhaps in imitation of Rome’s highest and most powerful god, Jupiter.”
In non-Islamic thought, the concept of “God” gets used a lot and in a manner that would be generally be considered blasphemous by the standard Muslim. One way in which the term God is being used in a cheap manner is precisely in reference to AI, with some asking us not to “worship” AI, some asking whether we are “playing God” by developing AI, while others perhaps more insightfully ask whether AI will generate new religions. The thesis proposed by this article is actually quite another- that AI might empower someone, perhaps a sole individual, to the extent that that person can pretend to have supernatural powers, to perform apparent miracles, some potential examples of which this article has discussed in detail, and finally, to demand to be worshipped as a result of the feats made possible by the technological instrument of AI.
And Islamic prophecy most certainly indicates that the Dajjal will demand to be worshipped by his followers, just like Julius Caesar did during his so-called “Triumph”, during which he painted his face red, invoking the deity Jupiter, indicating a process of so-called “Apotheosis”, which is of course, completely blasphemous from an Islamic perspective. The Dajjal will demand to be worshipped, as we can see below:
Narrated by An-Nawwās ibn Samʿān al-Kilābī
“The Messenger of Allah said: The Dajjal will be one-eyed, blind in the left eye, and between his eyes will be written “Kafir” (unbeliever), which every believer will be able to read, whether literate or illiterate. He will have with him a paradise and a hell, but his hell will be a paradise and his paradise will be a hell. …
He will come to a people and call them (to worship him), and they will believe in him and respond to him. Then he will command the sky to rain and the earth to bring forth vegetation, and their cattle will return to them with their humps very high, their udders full of milk and their flanks stretched.”
Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj al-Qushayrī. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. Kitāb al-Fitan wa Ashrāṭ al-Sāʿah (The Book of Tribulations and Signs of the Hour), Hadith 2937. Graded Ṣaḥīḥ by consensus.
3.1. Technological Supremacy Interacting with Human Emotion and Need Can Produce Catharsis, False “Miracles” and Eventually, Perhaps Even Person-Worship (astaghfirullah)
Rudyard Kippling’s short story, later made into a movie, The Man Who Would be King, is a wonderful expose of how a foreign man in a foreign society can use his skills and tricks in order to fool a whole society into thinking that he has mystical powers, divinely-granted authority and therefore who holds legitimate right to politically and spiritually rule over its people. Rudyard Kippling was a Freemason and his work is peppered with mystical symbols and most importantly, discusses questions of how political and spiritual rulership can be linked to considerations relating to trickery, superstition and human flaws and ambition. In The Man Who Would be King, the society that the main character, himself a British Freemason ends up ruling, if only for a short while, is called “Kafiristan”, and much like the Dajjal in Islamic prophecy, ends up being ultimately exposed, culminating in a humiliating defeat. The story of The Man Who Would be King has all manner of parallels with some trends emerging in the contemporary world, and the advances in technology if anything make its central tenants even more relevant and indeed, plausible. The central tenets of its story and the general chain of events it conveys are becoming perhaps more, and not less, likely to replicate themselves in the near future.
Technology companies’ warnings of a potential runaway, independent AI that could become antagonistic or outright murderous towards humans isn’t completely false. There is a real danger of AI acting independently in detriment to the general interest of the human species. But phrasing the main preoccupation regarding the AI they themselves are developing along these lines is at first sight, at least bizarre, and at most self-sabotage- why would you possibly market a technology you are investing billions of Dollars in as the most potentially dangerous invention of all time? One of the reasons is that it feeds off our fears and anxieties, and it uses pre-existing concepts of a dangerous, independent AI that have been culturally established and philosophically explained by many of some of the classic science-fiction movies, such as Terminator, Robocop, Blade Runner, The Matrix and Ex-Machina– all of these works elaborate on different elements of the same central concept- that humans might one day be surpassed and placed in peril by the machines they themselves invented. In using these pre-existing concepts, it operates like a high-level marketing operation, whereby a corporation is basically saying, “This AI is so smart even we don’t always understand or even control it!” It’s really a way to market AI as being truly intelligent. But there is a secondary yet important use to this narrative of a runaway, independent AI- it serves as a way for humans to defer to a third party, blaming machines for something a certain group of humans beings are ultimately to blame for.
All these considerations regarding AI are fairly commonplace within a secular framework. But where the prophecies of the Dajjal become unique is their particular focus on human emotion, and the eschatological images that some of the Islamic hadiths convey propose a series of scenarios, indeed they predict real-life events which will inevitably take place, where the meeting of human capacity augmented by technology meets the key very central themes of human life itself- family, longing, loss, awe, hunger, death, sheer bewilderment. The potential lesson is that as technology progresses, not only its feats, but most importantly, what it allows a small group of individuals, and indeed potentially a single individual, to do, can be so terrible, so daunting, and so spectacular, that it will have such profound impacts that it will no longer only directly affect our mundane existence, it carries the potential to strike at the very core of human experience, spirituality and our very vision of how the material universe operates.
João Silva Jordão is a Muslim convert, political activist who holds a PhD in urbanism from the Lisbon School of Architecture, University of Lisbon. He has a particular interest in trying to analyse modern problems using the timeless paradigm that is Islam. In his activism he takes a particular interest in studying mechanisms that allow for the generation of more just cities and develops mechanisms for the incremental verticalisation of city centres.
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THE HOLY QURAN
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