Cairo: Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyyah (Egypt’s Fatwa House) and the General Secretariat of Fatwa Institutions Worldwide inaugurated the 11th edition of their international conference in Cairo on Wednesday, drawing participation from muftis representing 80 countries.
The two-day conference carries the title “Family Challenges Amid Major Transformations: A Fatwa Approach to Protecting the Family, Envisioning Its Future, and Preserving Identity.” Its central focus is the growing pressure on Muslim families as the world transitions deeper into the digital age.
The opening session featured a documentary titled “One Home,” which examined how artificial intelligence and social media platforms affect family life, including privacy violations, weakened family cohesion, and links to atheism and suicide.
Grand Mufti of Egypt Dr. Nazir Ayyad delivered the keynote address, warning that the digital environment reinforces individualism and erodes direct family dialogue. He described children being offered virtual companions and AI-generated alternatives that lack the warmth and reassurance of genuine human relationships. He also highlighted the threats posed by the dark web to family security and children’s development.
Ayyad introduced the concept of a “triangle of disintegration” comprising irreligion, weakened national belonging, and the separation of behavior from moral controls. He also flagged the “commodifying of relationships,” warning that some people assess family life through a lens of financial profitability, distorting core Islamic family concepts including guardianship and obedience.
He called for fatwa institutions to launch multilingual digital awareness campaigns, build interdisciplinary partnerships involving scholars of Islamic law, sociology, psychology, technology, and media, and make “applying the objectives of Sharia in family matters” a core academic subject at both undergraduate and graduate levels.
Minister of Awqaf Dr. Osama Al-Azhari described the family as “the institution of institutions,” stressing that it forms the foundation of a person’s sense of security, belonging, and values. He also reaffirmed Egypt’s firm support for Palestinian statehood along the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Al-Azhar Vice President Ayman Abdel-Ghani urged a shift from crisis-response jurisprudence to a “jurisprudence of prevention,” calling for family guidance beginning before the marriage contract.
Over the two days, 317 research papers on family issues will be reviewed by specialized committees, with their findings translated into fatwas and published in multiple languages for Muslims worldwide.
