AI Systems

 QUESTION:

I run a digital marketing and AI systems agency, and I need some guidance on two specific situations that have come up.

Our work involves creating and posting social media content (images/videos) for clients, some of which is made by us or outsourced editors, and some of which is generated using AI tools we build. This content sometimes includes music and human faces.

Question 1:
Sometimes a client sends us a finished video (with music already in it) and asks us to run it as a paid ad or post it live. Other times, we outsource the editing; someone else creates the video with music and faces, then sends it to us, and we’re the ones who publish it to reach thousands of people.
We aren’t the ones filming, editing, or adding the music, but we are the ones making it public and paid to distribute it. Does this responsibility of “making it live” carry the same ruling as if we created it ourselves?

Question 2:

Separately, we build AI systems/software that clients use to generate their own marketing content; images and videos, sometimes including faces and music. We try to steer the AI away from faces where we can, but by nature, the AI sometimes produces them anyway, and clients can also choose to include music.

Here, we’re not creating any individual piece of content ourselves but rather, we’re building the infrastructure/tool that enables others to create it. Does providing that tool put us in a different position than directly making the content, or does it carry similar responsibility?

ANSWER:

Answer1:

In principle, it is not permissible to market or advertise products that are deemed impermissible in Shariah. Hence it is impermissible to promote products that contain music.

قال تعالى: ولا تعاونوا على الإثم والعدوان  سورة المائدة

Answer 2:

In principle, it is permissible to sell items which can be used in both permissible and impermissible ways, e.g. computers, radios, CD-players, etc. while it will not permissible to sell items which are exclusively used in sin with no other purpose, such as musical instruments, movies, music, etc. Hence in the above question if the AI tools which you are creating will solely be used to create content that is Halaal, i.e. free from pictures, music, etc. then it will be permissible.

(Jawaherul-Fiqh, 2/439-462)
(Ahsan al-Fatawa, 7/329)

ALLAH TA’ALA ALONE IN HIS INFINITE KNOWLEDGE KNOWS BEST!

ANSWERED BY:

Mufti Ahmed Saeed

Date: 06 Safar 1448 / 22 July 2026

CHECKED AND APPROVED BY:

Mufti Yacoob Vally Saheb