Panel: HIKMA 2.0? ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVES ON TRANSHUMANISM, NEUROTECHNOLOGY, AND AI IN THE ANTHROPOCENE



289.1 - SUPERINTELLIGENCE + MUSLIM = SUPERMUSLIM? ON BUILDING A MUSLIM POSTHUMAN VOCABULARY

AUTHORS:
Kam H. (University of Innsbruck ~ Innsbruck ~ Austria)
Text:
As we now enter the posthuman era, Muslim intellectuals must develop a vocabulary of the "Muslim posthuman" that enables us to co-shape the emerging new world: What can we look forward to in a posthuman Muslim society with all its tools of AI governance, and what must we fear? This paper is a first step in that direction. First, it reconstructs Roy Jackson's figure of the "Supermuslim," examining both his proposed Muslim Transhumanist Creed and the hermeneutic strategy that seeks to render transhumanism a natural extension of Islamic theological and philosophical traditions. The critiques advanced by Büşra Kılıç Ahmedi and Syed Mustafa Ali are brought into dialogue to show why this synthesis collapses on theological, ethical, and political grounds. The second part turns to Stefan Lorenz Sorgner's "Euro-transhumanism," a philosophically distinct and explicitly anti-utopian variant that departs from Silicon Valley libertarianism and appears, at first glance, more compatible with Islamic concerns. The article evaluates whether Muslim critiques of the Supermuslim retain their force within this new paradigm. It concludes by arguing that, while Euro-transhumanism offers a valuable critical interlocutor, the foundational tensions between transhumanist aspirations and Islamic anthropology remain unresolved—and may themselves illuminate the contours of an emerging Muslim posthuman vocabulary.