Islamic Law and Artificial Intelligence Regulation in Indonesia: A Critical Analysis of Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿah and Positive Law

Abstract

Indonesia has no dedicated statute on artificial intelligence. Its governance rests on a circular letter of ministerial ethics, on the Electronic Information and Transactions Law and the Personal Data Protection Law, and on two draft presidential regulations that have completed inter-ministerial deliberation. Islamic legal scholarship has responded with ethical commentary rather than with analysis of the binding framework. This study maps the Indonesian regulatory landscape for artificial intelligence, assesses its principal risks through maqasid al-shari’ah, and formulates criteria for a risk-based regime consistent with both Islamic legal reasoning and Indonesian constitutional law. The research is normative juridical and doctrinal, combining statutory, conceptual, and comparative approaches with Islamic legal methodology, and using the European Union’s risk-based regulation and the UNESCO recommendation as comparative reference points. The framework is characterised by soft-law leadership and hard-law dispersion: the instruments that bind were not designed for automated systems, while the instrument designed for them does not bind. Artificial intelligence cannot be a subject of obligation in Islamic legal terms because responsibility presupposes reason and choice; liability must therefore be allocated among developers, deployers, and users through causation-based reasoning. Maqasid analysis identifies distinct risk profiles for each essential interest and shows that the current instruments protect property and privacy more effectively than intellect and religion. A statutory basis is required because limitations of constitutional rights must be imposed by law, and risk tiers should be calibrated to the classical gradation of necessities, needs, and improvements.