News

Call for Papers: God, Human, Machine: Images and Imaginations of Religion in the Age of AI

(International Conference; 21-23 September 2026)

This conference is convened by Prof Christoph Günther and Dr Fouad Gehad Marei. We invite scholars and researchers to submit paper proposals that critically examine how AI technologies are reshaping religious images and imaginations across traditions, cultures, and social contexts. We welcome contributions that explore theoretical perspectives and/or empirical contexts, and which lie at the intersections of Religious Studies, Anthropology, Art History, and Science and Technology Studies. Papers may address any religious tradition and/or interfaith/intrafaith perspectives.

Current research shows that Large Language Models (LLMs) – sometimes conceived of as an “all-knowing voice of truth” (Tsuria 2023) or a “Special Thing” (Reed and Trothen 2026) – are redefining how religious communities engage with AI (Singler 2024) and how AI represents religion (Tsuria and Tsuria 2024), and thus how these technologies may contribute to a re-enchantment of the world (Singler 2020). The conference shifts attention to the hitherto largely neglected aesthetic, ethical, and intellectual implications of AI-generated imagery in religious contexts. We seek contributions, which explore the ways in which socio-technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and computer generated imagery (CGI) both inform and are shaped by religious images and imaginations across traditions, cultures, and social contexts. We invite theoretical and empirical research papers that examine how AI-generated imagery offers new avenues to render the Unseen tangible and enact the expressive dimension of religious texts, as well the ways in which these technologies are employed by religious practitioners to inform their ideas about human relations to the world and the Sacred. Contributions should examine applications and appropriations of digital imagery technologies by religious scholars, entrepreneurs, content creators, and practitioners. Research papers examining or engaging with critical debates about the (im)permissibility and (in)appropriateness of these technologies and their implications for religious knowledge and meaning-making in the 21st century are also welcome.

Paper presentations are typically 15-20 minutes long, and should be based on a written but unpublished research paper, or on ongoing research. Selected research papers will be published in a peer-reviewed anthology or special issue. 

We invite contributions addressing any aspect of AI and religious images and imaginations, including but not limited to any one or more of the following interrelated themes, around which the conference will be structured: 

  • Imagination, Revelation, and the Machine
  • Ritual, Practice, and Lived Religion in the Age of AI 
  • Futures, Speculations, and Critical Imaginaries 
  • Global and Comparative Perspectives

Submission Guidelines 

Please submit abstracts (300 words) and a short biography (200 words), detailing your academic background, research interests and relevant publications. 

Submissions should be made to aiimagery[at]uni-erfurt.de by or on Sunday, February 22, 2026. Submissions must be original. Published research and research under consideration for publication will not be accepted. 

We encourage submissions from junior and senior scholars, advanced-stage graduate students, and independent researchers. The organizers are committed to diversity and will give special consideration to scholars from historically under-represented demographies and geographies.

Download Call for Papers here

Review Process

Abstracts will undergo a review process based on specific criteria, including but not limited to the following: Relevance to the themes and remit of the conference. Clearly defined research questions, theoretical and methodological rigour, and, where relevant, clearly defined empirical case studies, data sets, and other empirical considerations. Good grasp of the state-of-the-art in research on AI and religion, and critical engagement with existing scholarly debates. Originality and potential to advance the field and push the boundaries of current research on AI and religious images and imaginations. 

Financial Support 

Authors of accepted papers will be offered travel and accommodation costs as well as all meals during the conference.

Muslims in the Digital Age Series: AI and Muslim Piety on TikTok

In February, Dr Christoph Günther had been invited by the Global Islamic Studies Center at the University of Michigan to present his research on AI image tools and Islam on social media platforms. Dr Günther is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of History of Art at the University of Michigan. He presented two case studies to the ways in which Muslim content creators utilize AI-generated texts and images to illustrate Qur’anic passages and hadith narrations, creating visually engaging content to promote ethical guidance and encourage people to a more pious conduct. Dr Günther argues that these actors blend sacred narratives with non-Islamic visual frameworks, hence proposes to understand such AI-generated or AI-enhanced (moving) images as a 21st-century update of the illustrations of Islamic knowledge for an audience that is familiar with the visual language used. His lecture offered insights into how AI technologies mediate religious expression in the digital age and challenges audiences to consider the implications of blending sacred and secular visual vocabularies in the pursuit of piety.

Watch the full presentation here. 

 

 

AIWG research groups: Academic research needs exchange

What does the concept of digitality mean and how can we analytically grasp cyberspace? To what extent can hadiths be a medium for a dialogue-based encounter with the Prophet? To discuss these and other questions, the two AIWG research groups ‘Hadith’ and ‘Digitality’ with scholars located at different German Universities, recently met in Erfurt and Giessen for an intensive exchange.

In mid-November, scholars of the AIWG research group ‘Islam and Digitality: Media, Materiality, Hermeneutics’ convened for their first collaborative project meeting in Erfurt. The first part of the workshop focused on theoretical examinations of the concepts of digitality and religion. As part of their exchange, a fruitful discussion on the relationship between orality, literacy and digitality took place. Particularly in European thought, literacy is regarded as a more progressive and credible form of communication. In the religious context of narrating hadiths the tables turn – here, personal oral communication usually counts as ‘gold standard’. Digital communication enables both oral and written communication of religious content, whereby both forms of communication transform. In the second part of the workshop, project scholars presented specific examples from their research. Together with invited expert Markus Brodthage from Martin Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg, participants tested the documentary method for analyzing religious content on social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok.

The project module at the Goethe-University Frankfurt focuses on historical narratives in online discourse. Examples from their research included the role of female companions of the Prophet Muhammad in content created by Muslim influencers and the depiction of early Islamic power struggles and civil wars to construct a specifically Shiite historical perspective. The Erfurt sub-project analyses the aesthetics of audiovisual media. Both researcher presented research material on the online presence of Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat as well as Muslim online content created by using artificial intelligence. The sub-project on hadith in digital spaces at the Humboldt University Berlin and will organize the next project meeting in May 2025.

The collaborative research project ‘Islam and Digitality’ is based at the universities of Frankfurt am Main, Berlin and Erfurt. For the first time, it deals with questions that have that have so far rarely been the subject of Islamic studies and theology. In addition to asking how digitalisaton affects the shaping of religious practices and the construction of religious knowledge, the researchers explore the following aspects in their multi-year research project: What effects does the use of digital research tools and resources have on Islamic theology as an academic discipline? How do digitally constructed and mediated historical perceptions of Islam relate to current discourses on religious identity and remembrance? How does digitalisation affect hadith collections and their interpretations? How do Muslim theologians use social media to convey their views on what Islam is and how it should be lived, as interpreted, and proclaimed in podcasts, images, and videos?

The research group will present current contributions and news from the project on its website www.islamdigitality.com.

Are you interested in our lectures, workshops and conferences?

You can find information on upcoming events and the event archive on our "Events" page.

Events