Miscellaneous

Q: There is currently a hair growth treatment that is being offered for people who suffer from serious hair loss. 

In the treatment, blood cells are taken from a person with healthy hair (not your blood cells but from someone else). These cells are then genetically modified in a lab and mixed with a serum which is applied onto your head. They then do micro needling which allows the serum to get into your scalp. 

During the process of the treatment, you are also required to use a minoxidil spray every night. 

Is the above treatment permissible to use?

Q: I go to an all boys boarding school, and in the dormitory, when it's time to sleep, there are many boys that watch movies in the rooms, and they do all other sorts of Haraam in the room. 

If there is an alternative place for me to sleep, such as a close by Masjid, or the library, is it permissible for me to sleep in the dormitory?

Q: 

1. Is it allowed to buy a motorcycle if it has almost the price of a car? Would it be waste? 

2. Is it allowed to exceed the speed limit?

Q: Can a woman ride on the back of a motorcycle? The man drives and the woman rides on the back.

Q: I live with my mother who is mentally and physically abusive to me and my siblings. Last year, she broke my nose, she has called me ugly and stupid and worthless my whole life. She pushes me to do things that are detrimental to my mental health - like marrying someone 11 years older or getting into med school. 

I want to leave my household and make a life for myself so that I don’t constantly feel suicidal and can do some good in this world. But in order to leave, I must apply to programs that I do not have the qualifications for - there is a program that requires me to have one year work experience and I only have 6 months. 

Even though I do not want to lie, I was wondering if it might be permissible for me to do so in this situation just to help my chances of getting out my house?

Q: In a joint family system, if a husband forces you to live in a shared room where all the family members, including his father and brother sleep, due to the utilization of a single AC. Is it permissible in Islam or not?

Q: We have a male family member who is mentally retarded. Who is responsible for his well-being? 

He has the following family members living: 3 sisters and a brother. From his nephews, he has 2 male nephews who are the sons of his late brother. From his sisters, he has a few male nephews as well.

Q: Is the responsibility of taking care of the parents only on the sons or on the daughters also?

Q: I am a female and went to a male naturopath and he checked my pulse which I thought he won't and felt really bad about it as a ghair mahram touched me. But now I really need treatment and haven't heard of a female naturopath. Is it okay for me to go to the male and is it fine if he touches my hand to check my pulse?

Q: My question is regarding the recent advancements in the computing world in “Artificial Intelligence”, specifically around Generative AI. Generative AI algorithms have advanced the field significantly where we can now generate text and media that is virtually indistinguishable from one created by humans. The AI is trained on large datasets of existing text and media. There are a growing number of software services offering these capabilities to businesses and consumers. While many of the use-cases are likely permissible when it comes to text generation, a growing number of impermissible applications will likely become available to the masses soon. 

I will list some of the applications: 

- generating audio: will allow generating any type of audio using any voice. Could be Quran-like verses from a renowned Qari, a fake conversation/dialog between public figures, or songs and music. Since these are generated by computer, the voice could be the emulation of a person who was not involved at all. Audio generation has quite a lot of harmful applications which could mislead people, given that it is human nature to trust voiceprints. 

- generating text: enables consumers to generate prose in any style desired. Innocent applications are where we can use it to author content, summarize content, explain content, etc. The prose generated could be the emulation of anyone we desire. Therefore, harmful content could be something like generating fake verses of Quran, fake hadith, and worse. 

- generating images/videos: enables users to generate images/videos just by providing a text prompt describing the scene/image desired in the output image/video. It may generate fake images, sow distrust, and increase immodesty significantly. 

Note that all these generations are possible by a variety of input to the application (text-based prompts, image-/video-based prompts, sound-based, etc.). 

I have some questions regarding the generation of content that would have been deemed impermissible if generated by a human: 

1) Do the rulings of digital photography extend to photos generated by a computer through Artificial Intelligence? i.e. if one believes that capturing/drawing photos by hand or through camera is haram, should that belief carryover to computer-generated media? It seems like there’s a nuance here in who’s generating the content — human vs computer. Does that change the Sharee’e rulings of digital photography? 

2) There’s a hukm regarding the purdah of a woman’s voice when speaking to a non-mahram, even when separated by a door/wall. Women are supposed to use harsher tones in those situations. Regarding generated audio, would the Sharee’e ruling of purdah apply here too? For example, if a female-emulated computer-generated voice is used in a maps navigation program, would that violate the principle of Purdah? 

3) Until now, if anyone wanted to photograph me, they would require my presence. With the new technology, it may be possible to generate a person’s face that looks very close to mine. Would it be my responsibility to make sure nobody generates my image?