How the Muslim world is grappling with AI, faith and the struggle for human dignity

How the Muslim world is grappling with AI, faith and the struggle for human dignity Submitted by Hesham Gaafar on Wed, 06/17/2026 - 19:56 As Pope Leo XIV warns in his recent encyclical, artificial intelligence is not simply another tool. It is reshaping every aspect of our lives This illustration photograph, taken in October 2023 in Mulhouse, France, shows figurines next to a screen displaying a logo of the US firm OpenAI (Sebastien Bozon/AFP) On When Pope Leo XIV signed his first encyclical , Magnifica Humanitas, on 15 May 2026 , the date was not accidental. It marked 135 years since Rerum Novarum , the 1891 papal letter that confronted the moral crisis of the industrial age: factories, machines, labour exploitation and the violent imbalance between capital and workers.