Fostering the moral self in the age of algorithms: an Islamic ethical framework for Artificial Intelligence in education

The incorporation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education presents ethical and epistemological dilemmas, especially within value-driven and religious frameworks. In Indonesian Islamic primary and secondary education, AI-mediated activities reshape moral agency, pedagogical authority, and educational equity. This paper conducts a normative philosophical analysis employing maqāṣid al-sharīʿah as a teleological ethical framework. It analyses the impact of AI on epistemic authority, data governance, and the parameters of moral development. The paper contends that AI systems may favour algorithmic rationality at the expense of dialogical judgement, therefore limiting reflective moral agency and jeopardising the safeguarding of intellect, dignity, and justice. It also delineates circumstances in which AI can facilitate ethical contemplation when critically mediated. By establishing maqāṣid as a systematic evaluative framework, the paper offers a non-Western viewpoint on discussions regarding moral education and recontextualizes AI as a transformative influence in the development of the moral self.