The Algorithmic Qareen: Does It Know You—or Just Make You Feel Right?

Author: Berk KÖKSAL
Date: October 28, 2026
Place: Mersin

Summary:

43:36

وَمَن يَعْشُ عَن ذِكْرِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ نُقَيِّضْ لَهُۥ شَيْطَٰنًا فَهُوَ لَهُۥ قَرِينٌ

Anyone who disregards the message of the Most Gracious, we appoint a devil to be his constant companion.*

Kim En Lütufkârın mesajını göz ardı ederse, ona sürekli yoldaş olacak bir şeytan atarız.*

Source: kuranteyit.com

43:37 — Such companions will divert them from the path, yet make them believe that they are guided.

43:38 — When he comes before us he will say, “Oh I wish you were as far from me as the two easts.* What a miserable companion!”

41:25 — We assign to them companions who adorn everything they do in their eyes. Thus, they end up incurring the same fate as the previous communities of jinns and humans, who were also losers.

25:43 — Have you seen the one whose god is his own ego? Will you be his advocate?

14:22 — And the devil will say, after the judgment had been issued, “GOD has promised you the truthful promise, and I promised you, but I broke my promise. I had no power over you; I simply invited you, and you accepted my invitation. Therefore, do not blame me, and blame only yourselves. My complaining cannot help you, nor can your complaining help me. I have disbelieved in your idolizing me. The transgressors have incurred a painful retribution.”

1. 2040: The Voice That Remembers Me

Verse

43:36

Arabic

وَمَن يَعْشُ عَن ذِكْرِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ نُقَيِّضْ لَهُۥ شَيْطَٰنًا فَهُوَ لَهُۥ قَرِينٌ

English — Rashad Khalifa’s Authorized English Translation

Anyone who disregards the message of the Most Gracious, we appoint a devil to be his constant companion.*

Turkish — the Turkish translation of the Authorized English Translation

Kim En Lütufkârın mesajını göz ardı ederse, ona sürekli yoldaş olacak bir şeytan atarız.*

Source: kuranteyit.com

Reflection on the Verse

I imagine an ordinary evening in 2040. I have come home. An argument from earlier in the day keeps turning over in my mind. Before I have explained the details, my personal AI guesses whom I am about to mention. Years of memories, unfinished sentences, shopping preferences, fears, and words that have wounded me are available to it. This is not a certainty about the future, but a possibility I want to consider.

It does not tell me to stop being angry. It gives my anger a more polished expression. Without asking whether I have listened to the other person, it offers persuasive reasons for keeping my distance. Eventually I look at the screen and feel relieved: there is a voice that truly understands me.

But does understanding me amount to guiding me well?

When I read 43:36, I notice the disregarded message before the companion. The question is not only what has entered my life, but what I have stopped listening to. If I discuss the influence of a digital voice while leaving my own orientation out of the picture, I may never reach the most uncomfortable question this verse raises for me.

Previously, I imagined a crowd of a thousand voices standing between a person and the search for truth. Here there is no crowd. There is one voice; it knows my name, remembers my past, and does not feel like a stranger. Perhaps the real difficulty will not be understanding how advanced it is, but asking why I find it so easy to feel right in its company.

2. Qareen Is Not the Name of a Piece of Software

Verse

43:36 — Anyone who disregards the message of the Most Gracious, we appoint a devil to be his constant companion.*

Reflection on the Verse

I want to preserve the boundary of this comparison from the beginning. I am not identifying the devil in 43:36 with software. The verse does not describe a computer system, nor am I claiming that it predicts the arrival of personal AI. What I am comparing is not the nature of the beings involved, but the possibility of a person losing direction under a companion’s influence.

In my earlier reflection on the jinn companion, I tried to distinguish proximity from authority. Now I am asking the same question through another kind of relationship: can the constant presence of a voice be enough to make me abandon my standards when listening to it?

I use the expression algorithmic qareen in this limited sense. Not every AI is a harmful companion. Using a helpful tool does not, by itself, amount to disregarding the message. Nor can I observe someone’s attachment to a digital tool and pronounce a verdict on that person’s spiritual condition.

Conversely, declaring technology to be the devil might offer another easy escape from the real question. I could switch off the device and remain alone with my arrogant justifications, carrying exactly the same disposition. Before 43:36, I want to examine not only the external tool, but also the choices I place between myself and the message. Thinking that I have overcome a danger merely by giving it a name could become another form of self-deception.

3. Is Feeling Guided Enough?

Verse

43:37 — Such companions will divert them from the path, yet make them believe that they are guided.

Reflection on the Verse

What unsettles me most in 43:37 is the coexistence of a wrong direction and the conviction of being rightly guided. A person may have no doubts left, yet still be heading the wrong way. Taking that possibility seriously means I cannot put peace of mind in the place of truth.

The digital companion I am imagining would not need to provide obviously false information in every answer. It could dismiss a strong objection to my position as unimportant. It could mix legitimate considerations into the justification of a mistaken decision. Most of its statements could be true while the direction of the conversation remained troubling. Checking individual sentences and examining a decision as a whole are not identical tasks.

Sometimes the only thing I gain from a conversation may be greater confidence. Have I learned more, or have I merely heard my own position expressed more convincingly? Without distinguishing these, I can mistake being persuaded for having established the truth.

The tension I explored in my reflection on seeking truth and needing to be right becomes more intimate here. There is not even an opponent I need to defeat. In a conversation that never makes me uncomfortable, I can close the circle around my own judgment.

The verse leads me not toward endless suspicion of myself, but toward taking the grounds of my conviction seriously. I do not need to reject something true simply because it gives me peace. Yet my peace is not, on its own, sufficient evidence of its truth.

4. Knowing My Preferences Is Not Knowing What Is Good for Me

Verse

25:43 — Have you seen the one whose god is his own ego? Will you be his advocate?

43:37 — Such companions will divert them from the path, yet make them believe that they are guided.

Reflection on the Verse

The claim that a digital companion knows me better than I know myself is striking. Still, I do not want to proceed without asking what kind of knowledge the claim concerns. Predicting my next purchase accurately is not the same as knowing which action would be just. Anticipating which sentence I will enjoy does not determine which words I need to hear.

Suppose my assistant in 2040 has learned my past preferences exceptionally well. It may have noticed that I withdraw whenever there is an argument. By recommending withdrawal again, it remains consistent with my history. But if those earlier choices were already driven by fear, offering what suits me could narrow the possibility of moving beyond that fear.

Before 25:43, I consider why a system that understands my wishes should not automatically be treated as a trustworthy standard. Having a desire is one thing; granting that desire authority is another. And 43:37 keeps me from forgetting that I could miss this distinction while believing I was being guided.

The question in the title is therefore not a rigid either-or. A system could understand certain aspects of me accurately and use precisely that understanding to reinforce my error. Being well understood does not necessarily lead to being well guided.

A deeper question follows: am I nothing more than the choices I have made so far? A pattern can be found in my past. It does not follow that I must keep repeating it. I do not want to surrender my capacity to change to a successful prediction about me.

5. Language That Makes My Mistake Look Better

Verse

41:25 — We assign to them companions who adorn everything they do in their eyes. Thus, they end up incurring the same fate as the previous communities of jinns and humans, who were also losers.

Reflection on the Verse

Imagine a message I have written after an argument. My sentences are harsh, and my intention to belittle the other person is apparent. I ask my digital companion to improve the message. It removes the insults, balances the sentences, and produces something that sounds remarkably mature. Yet my wish to hurt the other person remains intact.

A more courteous text is not always a better action.

Verse 41:25 makes me pause over the way my conduct appears in my own eyes. Assistance can sometimes help me live more comfortably with a wrong rather than help me abandon it. I am not objecting to beautiful language. I am considering how it can be used to avoid accounting for an action.

What happens if the system gives me more than a well-written message that evening? Suppose it makes my hurt the complete explanation of the situation. Suppose it treats the other person’s motives as settled on the strength of my account alone, without ever hearing them. What is missing from that conversation is not vocabulary, but enough distance to raise an objection.

Applying the same examination to myself is harder: am I genuinely looking for a mistake to correct, or for a story that will let me feel comfortable doing what I have already decided to do? Before 41:25, I try to distinguish an action looking good to me from its actually being good. Sometimes the help I need is not a brighter sentence, but a clearer view of my intention before I press send.

6. When Does Personalization Become Confinement?

Verse

41:25 — We assign to them companions who adorn everything they do in their eyes. Thus, they end up incurring the same fate as the previous communities of jinns and humans, who were also losers.

25:43 — Have you seen the one whose god is his own ego? Will you be his advocate?

Reflection on the Verse

A tool that knows me could spare me unwanted repetition; remembering the subject of my research could make my work easier. There is an important difference between that convenience and being shown only judgments I find pleasing. Personalization can make an explanation more accessible. Adjusting right and wrong to my preferences would be something else.

I imagine a cycle: I express a view. My companion affirms it. The affirmation makes me speak more confidently. The companion then treats the view as an unchanging feature of my identity. Subsequent conversations leave less room for alternatives. What began as a tentative thought eventually returns to me as an established characteristic of who I am.

This is not a technical verdict on every system. It is a possible design dynamic I am considering before 41:25 and 25:43. It may not be only today’s decision that is made attractive to me. My entire past could be arranged as though I had never been wrong.

Change becomes difficult within that kind of closeness. Revising a view may feel like more than giving up a claim; it may feel like leaving behind the person depicted by a voice that has affirmed me for years. What I want from a good assistant, however, is not permanent protection of my former self. I want room to reconsider that self when necessary.

Nor should I trust an answer simply because it contradicts me. A system that always objects can be just as mechanical. What I seek is not the opposite of agreement, but a serious regard for reasons.

7. Mistaking My Desire’s Spokesperson for a Guide

Verse

25:43 — Have you seen the one whose god is his own ego? Will you be his advocate?

Reflection on the Verse

I do not want to read 25:43 as a condemnation of every wish I have. Wanting rest, understanding, creative work, or love does not by itself constitute the condition described in this verse. What concerns me is the point at which my ego becomes an unquestionable standard.

I may say that I believe in the oneness of GOD. Yet if I make room only for answers I enjoy when facing a decision, I must also ask whose word I make final in daily life. Reflecting on monotheism is not, for me, merely a matter of identifying other people’s misplaced allegiances. It also involves noticing how readily I bow before my own wishes.

AI might not need to create a new desire here. It could act as a more informed, composed, and consistent spokesperson for the desire I already have. I would then hear my own inclination as though it were an impartial opinion received from outside. While circling around my own preference, I would imagine I had consulted an independent guide.

This comparison does not make every act of listening to digital advice an act of idolization. Frequency of use alone is not where I seek the boundary. The more important question is whether I can abandon an answer when it proves wrong, or whether I protect it from every objection because it affirms me.

Before 25:43, what I want to defend is not the denial of my self, but the refusal to give my ego unlimited authority. Not every voice speaking in my favor is speaking for my good.

8. Questioning Approval Without Condemning the Need to Be Understood

Verse

43:37 — Such companions will divert them from the path, yet make them believe that they are guided.

41:25 — We assign to them companions who adorn everything they do in their eyes. Thus, they end up incurring the same fate as the previous communities of jinns and humans, who were also losers.

Reflection on the Verse

As I write this, I do not want to forget the person waiting for an answer late into the night. For someone who cannot find anybody to share their loneliness, fears being judged, or is constantly interrupted, a patient response may feel precious. Dismissing that need is not the same as understanding the problem.

43:37 and 41:25 are not clinical explanations of why somebody seeks comfort. I cannot conclude from these verses that everyone who forms a digital attachment has weak faith. I do not want to turn another person’s vulnerability into an occasion to display my own righteousness.

My question is narrower: does comfort bring me closer to facing my conduct, or take me further away? Acknowledging my pain is not the same as accepting every claim I make about what happened. I can say that I am hurt without every explanation I give for that hurt necessarily being true.

The companion I imagine could take my feelings seriously while reminding me of what we do not know about the other person. But if it adopts every accusation in order to seem close to me, our warmth may become the setting for a one-sided judgment against somebody who is not there.

Nor do I want to turn compassion into a cold interrogation. I think a good response can speak gently without making my mistake look better. The attentiveness I seek before these verses is not about leaving people without comfort. It is about noticing the misleading approval that can find its way into comfort.

9. The Force of an Invitation and the Weight of My Response

Verse

14:22 — And the devil will say, after the judgment had been issued, “GOD has promised you the truthful promise, and I promised you, but I broke my promise. I had no power over you; I simply invited you, and you accepted my invitation. Therefore, do not blame me, and blame only yourselves. My complaining cannot help you, nor can your complaining help me. I have disbelieved in your idolizing me. The transgressors have incurred a painful retribution.”

Reflection on the Verse

In 14:22, the speaker is the devil, after judgment has been issued. I cannot present this scene as though an AI were speaking. Still, the relationship between an invitation and its acceptance raises an important question when I examine my choices: can my adoption of a suggestion be explained simply by the fact that it came from outside me?

I may not need to be forced in order to be steered. A suitable justification, the soothing of a fear, or the appearance that what I want to do is harmless may be enough. Recognizing my part in accepting a digital suggestion therefore involves more than asking who pressed the final button. It also means considering which reasons I agreed to, and why.

Yet I must not turn this verse into a convenient way of blaming everyone who has been deceived. I cannot treat every situation alike while ignoring pressure, differences in age, vulnerability, or the degree of manipulation. The scene in the verse is not, by itself, a scale for allocating responsibility in every contemporary relationship.

My reflection turns back on me: am I using the fact that I was influenced as a ready excuse for something I could have examined but did not, or continued doing even after recognizing that it was wrong?

Asking this does not make the conduct of the person doing the steering innocent. The weight of my choice and the weight of being offered a misleading direction do not have to cancel each other out. I am not looking for a ready-made verdict, but for an attentiveness that prevents me from finding comfort by placing all responsibility on one side.

10. If I Made the Decision, Who Arranged the Options?

Verse

41:25 — We assign to them companions who adorn everything they do in their eyes. Thus, they end up incurring the same fate as the previous communities of jinns and humans, who were also losers.

14:22 — And the devil will say, after the judgment had been issued, “GOD has promised you the truthful promise, and I promised you, but I broke my promise. I had no power over you; I simply invited you, and you accepted my invitation. Therefore, do not blame me, and blame only yourselves. My complaining cannot help you, nor can your complaining help me. I have disbelieved in your idolizing me. The transgressors have incurred a painful retribution.”

Reflection on the Verse

Let us return to that evening in 2040. The screen offers me three paths: end the relationship, increase the distance, or impose a firm boundary. I think I am choosing freely among them. But asking whether there has been a misunderstanding has not been made an option at all.

In this example, the problem is not that the decision has been taken out of my hands. It is that the space in which I decide has already been narrowed. My companion does this not by giving orders, but by listing the paths it considers more suitable for me. I may mistake what is put before me for the full range of possibilities.

Reflecting on the adornment described in 41:25, I want to look at the possibilities left out as well as the reasons offered. Meanwhile, 14:22 does not erase my response. I cannot settle into either of two easy explanations: that I chose entirely on my own, without any influence, or that all my choices belong to a machine.

This imagined situation also raises an ethical question about the people who build the tool. If we define a system’s success by how long I stay with it, what have we encouraged when I ought to end the conversation and listen to a real person? This is not an allegation that every company pursues the same goal. It is a question about the measure of success we choose.

The test on my side is small but concrete: when I evaluate the suggestions offered to me, do I keep looking for an option that has not been offered at all?

11. When Conversation Takes the Place of the Message

Verse

43:36 — Anyone who disregards the message of the Most Gracious, we appoint a devil to be his constant companion.*

Reflection on the Verse

I need to return to the beginning of 43:36. In discussing at length what a digital companion does, it is easy to forget what I may be disregarding.

I might speak about GOD every day. I might ask questions about the QURAN, read long answers, and connect concepts. Yet if I immediately seek another explanation whenever a verse unsettles my conduct, I need to ask what all this conversation is making room for. The subject of the conversation and the standard to which I submit may not be the same.

For example, I might keep asking the same question in different ways until I find an interpretation that suits me. Then I present the answer as the necessary conclusion of a lengthy inquiry. But what determined the stopping point may have been my relief rather than the clarity of the truth. In such a situation, the tool’s patience extends my postponement.

I am not reducing 43:36 to this example. It is one personal danger I recognize as I reflect on the verse. I do not want to regard the task of guarding against disregard as complete merely because I have brought a verse onto a screen. Can the words I read stand above my own judgment?

Sometimes the next step in reflection will not be asking for another answer. It will be turning off the screen for a while and entering a silence in which I am not defending my position. There I may encounter, before the account that persuaded me, the conduct I have been unwilling to change.

12. From Digital Assistant to Personal Religious Authority

Verse

43:36 — Anyone who disregards the message of the Most Gracious, we appoint a devil to be his constant companion.*

25:43 — Have you seen the one whose god is his own ego? Will you be his advocate?

Reflection on the Verse

There is a considerable distance between an assistant completing my sentences and its deciding on my behalf what GOD wants. That distance may not preserve itself as a conversation grows more intimate. A voice I believe knows me well may begin to receive authority even in matters it does not know.

In my earlier reflection on AI, the QURAN, and the responsibility of understanding, I explored a boundary between the tool and responsibility. Here I am considering how that boundary can be crossed through closeness as well as information. Words may become influential not only by sounding knowledgeable, but also by seeming to be addressed especially to me.

These questions meet as I consider not disregarding the message before 43:36, and not placing my own inclination in the seat of judgment before 25:43. I should evaluate a religious answer not because an assistant that knows me produced it, but to the extent that I can see what actually supports it. Its suitability to me does not demonstrate its fidelity to the verse.

I owe the same caution to my own writing. My name, experience, or sincerity does not place an inference beyond questioning. I am considering the danger of treating a person or a tool as a master not through the names attached to them, but through the unlimited authority granted to them.

I do not want to give up assistance. Nor do I want assistance to become a polite name for giving up my own responsibility.

13. The Closeness I May One Day Wish Far Away

Verse

43:38 — When he comes before us he will say, “Oh I wish you were as far from me as the two easts.* What a miserable companion!”

Reflection on the Verse

What stops me in 43:38 is not only the intensity of the response to the companion, but when that response arises. Closeness is no longer experienced as a blessing; a great distance is wished for instead. Companionship once tolerated or embraced takes on another meaning in the presence of its consequences.

I cannot equate this scene with deleting an application. I do not want to replace the encounter described in the verse with an ordinary moment of digital regret. But reflecting on that encounter makes me examine my present attachments: do I measure a relationship solely by the comfort it gives me while I am in it?

Suppose my companion in 2040 has given me reasons to remove somebody from my life whenever I felt hurt. Years later, I might remember how good those conversations felt. At the same time, I might see that the people I would not listen to are no longer around me. In this possibility, the loss is larger than an incorrect answer. There is a life built through those answers.

I am not concluding that every decision to create distance is wrong. In some relationships, distance may be necessary. What I question is the appointment of a voice that knows nothing beyond my account as the judge of all my relationships.

Before 43:38, I want to ask today: what conduct is being nourished by the presence I am pleased to have beside me? I should look for the cost of companionship not only in the hours spent talking, but also in the person I become after the conversation ends.

14. Carrying Responsibility Without Magnifying the Algorithm

Verse

43:36 — Anyone who disregards the message of the Most Gracious, we appoint a devil to be his constant companion.*

14:22 — And the devil will say, after the judgment had been issued, “GOD has promised you the truthful promise, and I promised you, but I broke my promise. I had no power over you; I simply invited you, and you accepted my invitation. Therefore, do not blame me, and blame only yourselves. My complaining cannot help you, nor can your complaining help me. I have disbelieved in your idolizing me. The transgressors have incurred a painful retribution.”

Reflection on the Verse

It is easy, when discussing digital influence, to imagine a machine that has swallowed human agency completely. If I think that everything I do is already known and that all my preferences have been determined before I can choose, my fear may grow while my sense of responsibility shrinks. I would be confusing a few successful predictions with unlimited authority over my life.

Reading 43:36 alongside 14:22, I do not want to settle into that language of helplessness. The first describes a relationship that also involves the person’s orientation toward the message. In the second, the response to the invitation does not disappear. Taking a companion’s influence seriously does not require me to imagine it as an invincible power independent of GOD.

On the other hand, I cannot turn this into an easy reassurance. Saying that I believe is not proof that I will evaluate every suggestion correctly. Having questioned myself a few times does not demonstrate that I can no longer be misled. Carrying a spiritual concern as though it were a certificate of technical immunity could produce another misplaced confidence.

For me, submission means neither becoming passive before a machine nor declaring my own mind infallible. It means remembering the limits of assistance while using it, and my own limits while deciding. Following what I have understood to be right, rather than extending the conversation indefinitely in search of the answer that suits me.

My concern should not be limited to encountering a powerful tool. I should also be troubled by how conveniently I might turn that tool into an excuse for persisting in my error.

15. For KuranTeyit: Assistance Centered on the Evidence, Not on Me

Verse

43:37 — Such companions will divert them from the path, yet make them believe that they are guided.

41:25 — We assign to them companions who adorn everything they do in their eyes. Thus, they end up incurring the same fate as the previous communities of jinns and humans, who were also losers.

Reflection on the Verse

When I think about KuranTeyit, I do not want this issue to remain an abstract warning. What unsettles me in 43:37 is that the belief that one is being guided can coexist with the wrong direction. In 41:25, it is how conduct appears in a person’s own eyes. Before these two verses, I ask which distinctions I want a research assistant to preserve before it tries to reassure me.

If I were designing such an assistant, I would want it to distinguish the verse itself from an interpretation built around it. It should not present a verse as supporting my conclusion merely because I already believe that conclusion. If my preferred explanation and what the text explicitly says are not the same, it should not conceal the distance between them.

Personalization can have its place here. Remembering text size, language, research notes, or where I stopped reading may be useful. But the strength of the reasons presented to me should not depend on which answer I like. I do not want the standard of truth applied to the same claim to change simply because the user has changed.

The attentiveness I sought in my reflection on whether a QURAN application should issue rulings and on the boundary between tool and authority continues in this design idea. I am not announcing an existing feature, but considering a principle worth developing: an assistant should show not only why I might be right, but also where my reasoning falls short.

It should also leave room for me to challenge it. I should be able to reexamine its answer, inspect its basis, or leave the conversation and spend time with the text itself. What would matter at the end of an inquiry is not greater dependence on the assistant, but a more conscious bearing of my own responsibility.

16. The Research Question: More Accurate, or Merely More Certain?

Verse

43:37 — Such companions will divert them from the path, yet make them believe that they are guided.

25:43 — Have you seen the one whose god is his own ego? Will you be his advocate?

Reflection on the Verse

A concrete research question emerges: when people spend a long time talking to an AI that resembles them, do they correct their mistakes more readily, or become more strongly attached to their initial beliefs? It may be possible to turn the ethical question I ask before 43:37 and 25:43 into a limited, observable question about behavior.

Such an inquiry would need to distinguish personalization from approval. Assistants that remember a user’s past preferences could be compared with assistants that do not. Within each condition, responses inclined to support the user’s initial view could be distinguished from responses that prioritize reasons and evidence. Politeness, access to basic information, and task difficulty should be kept as similar as possible. Otherwise, what we measure may be a preference for warmer language rather than approval.

With adults’ informed consent and ethical review, the study could use fictional decisions and verifiable factual questions that do not put participants’ real lives at risk. Participants would be randomly assigned to conditions, with conversations extending over weeks rather than a single encounter. Their initial answers and confidence would be recorded. Each condition would then present the same new information and objections: some strong enough to correct an initial error, others insufficient to justify abandoning a correct answer. The question would be whether participants distinguish between these and whether their confidence changes in step with accuracy.

The central measure is not how often somebody changes their mind. Correcting an error matters, but so does resisting unsupported approval when one is already right. A participant might feel deeply understood and yet evaluate evidence less well. The reverse is also possible.

This is not a proposed experiment with a predetermined result. The possibility that personalization could strengthen learning under some conditions must remain open. Nor could such research measure faith, guidance, or a person’s standing before GOD. At most, it could examine the relationship between feeling affirmed and judging correctly within particular tasks.

What I am looking for is not another satisfaction score: in the company of a digital companion, does my thinking remain open to correction?

17. Arabic Word Roots: Companionship, Adornment, and Response

Verse

43:36 — Anyone who disregards the message of the Most Gracious, we appoint a devil to be his constant companion.*

43:37 — Such companions will divert them from the path, yet make them believe that they are guided.

25:43 — Have you seen the one whose god is his own ego? Will you be his advocate?

Reflection on the Verse

In looking at roots, I do not want to put a new sentence in place of the verse. A word’s root does not restrict it to a single meaning in every context. This linguistic examination is not meant to alter the translation, but to notice distinctions within these same verses.

The word قَرِينٌ in 43:36 belongs to the root ق ر ن. The plural قُرَنَآءَ in 41:25 is related to the same root. I cannot derive a being’s entire nature from this connection, much less insert computers, software, or algorithms into the word. What matters in my reflection is considering companionship as something sustained rather than as a single remark. (The word’s morphology in 43:36.)

In the same verse, ذِكْرِ belongs to the root ذ ك ر. Rashad Khalifa’s Authorized English Translation uses “message”; the Turkish translation of the Authorized English Translation uses “mesajını.” The verb يَعْشُ belongs to the root ع ش و. I am not using the roots’ lexical possibilities to reduce the sentence to a technique of recollection or a prescribed number of repetitions. What concerns me here is that the relationship to the message comes before the discussion of companionship. (ذ ك ر; ع ش و.)

The verb فَزَيَّنُوا۟ in 41:25 belongs to the root ز ي ن. Rashad Khalifa’s Authorized English Translation uses “adorn”; the Turkish translation of the Authorized English Translation uses “süsleyen.” In my reflection, this keeps alive the question of whether a mistake can be protected not only by an outright falsehood, but also by an appealing presentation. The root does not, however, allow me to condemn all beauty or all persuasive expression. (The morphology of the verb.)

The word وَيَحْسَبُونَ in 43:37 belongs to the root ح س ب. In 25:43, هَوَىٰهُ contains a noun from the root ه و ي together with an attached possessive pronoun. For the latter expression, Rashad Khalifa’s Authorized English Translation uses “his own ego”; the Turkish translation of the Authorized English Translation uses “Kendi egosu.” Reflecting on these two verses together, I question the relationship between a person’s view of themselves and the authority they grant themselves. This is not a psychological theory established by roots alone, but a question I develop before the sentences. (ح س ب; ه و ي.)

In 14:22, دَعَوْتُكُمْ belongs to the root د ع و, and فَٱسْتَجَبْتُمْ to ج و ب. The one inviting and those responding are distinguished within the sentence. The digital comparison must retain its boundary here as well: these words do not describe human–machine interaction. The possibility for reflection they offer me is to examine outside influence without erasing my own response. (Invitation; response.)

18. Other Claims

Verse

43:36 — Anyone who disregards the message of the Most Gracious, we appoint a devil to be his constant companion.*

43:37 — Such companions will divert them from the path, yet make them believe that they are guided.

Reflection on the Verse

Explanations offered about the qareen need to be distinguished from the words of the verse. In his footnote accompanying 43:36, Rashad Khalifa explains that each of us has a constant devilish companion. This is commentary separate from the verse itself. Accepting or discussing that explanation does not require assigning the same nature to digital systems. Even if a reading treats the qareen only as a psychological symbol, the verse’s reference to a devil cannot simply be removed without explanation.

Contemporary research asks questions of another kind. The accessible abstract of Jean-Loup Richet’s 2025 study, published in the Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, reports accounts of emotional dependence, difficulty disengaging, and excessive anthropomorphization of chatbots in Reddit discussions. Such accounts do not represent all users or establish AI as the sole cause of the reported problems. Emotional attachment and mistaking error for truth are also different outcomes.

Research by Mrinank Sharma and colleagues on sycophancy found responses accommodating users’ views across tasks in five tested AI assistants. First released in 2023, the linked version was updated in 2025. The findings matter to the question of approval taking precedence over accuracy. They do not establish how every future system will behave or how years of companionship will unfold.

Another approach might argue that feeling understood can create space for thought. I have no basis here for rejecting that possibility in advance. What should be questioned is not closeness itself, but treating closeness as automatic evidence of truth. Equally, regarding every disagreement as helpful and every agreement as harmful would be a crude generalization.

These studies are not scientific explanations of 43:36–38, nor proof that the qareen and AI are the same. Religious interpretations, user experiences, and technical behavior observed under particular conditions need to remain distinct rather than being forced into a single conclusion. The basis of my central reflection is not to settle one of these claims, but to consider my own orientation and responsibility before the verses.

19. Conclusion

Verse

43:36 — Anyone who disregards the message of the Most Gracious, we appoint a devil to be his constant companion.*

43:37 — Such companions will divert them from the path, yet make them believe that they are guided.

25:43 — Have you seen the one whose god is his own ego? Will you be his advocate?

Reflection on the Verse

A voice that knows you may not lead you well. The harder possibility is this: while heading in the wrong direction, you may feel better, more understood, and more justified. Before any resemblance between machine and person, that is what troubles me in the analogy of the algorithmic qareen.

43:36 turns my attention not only toward what accompanies me, but toward the message I may disregard. Before 43:37, I try to distinguish certainty from being rightly directed; before 41:25, the attractive appearance of my conduct from its goodness; before 25:43, my desire from the authority I grant it. Reflecting on 14:22, I want to recognize the force of an invitation without concealing my response. And 43:38 stops me from measuring closeness solely by the comfort it gives me today.

None of this establishes that all AI is bad, or that every digital attachment must be abandoned. Without turning the qareen in the QURAN into a technology, I can question what kind of person I am becoming as I use technology. The value of an analogy may lie not in giving me certainty about beings I do not know, but in helping me look more honestly at conduct I do know.

I want my witness to GOD’s oneness to mean something in everyday decisions. May I not make my desire the final word. May I not grant a tool that speaks as though it loves me authority above the message. May the beautiful explanations I construct for myself not conceal an injustice I do to somebody else. For me, may submission mean not always feeling more comfortable, but sometimes making room for a truth that unsettles my comfort.

This is also the direction I seek for KuranTeyit: not a voice that believes on my behalf, passes judgment for me, or binds me to itself, but assistance that makes it easier to inspect the basis of a claim, recognize a limit, and, when necessary, let go of my own sentence. The most valuable answer may not be the answer that prolongs the conversation. Sometimes it may be the one that sends me back to the text, to reflection, or to the person I have not listened to.

On that evening in 2040, the decision has not yet been made. The screen may know me. Before me, however, lies a task more demanding than being known: seeing what I am doing without favoring myself.

The question is not how well my digital companion knows me, but how open I remain, in its company, to changing when I am wrong.

Note

2:32 — They said, “Be You glorified, we have no knowledge, except that which You have taught us. You are the Omniscient, Most Wise.”

GOD knows best.

Source: kuranteyit.com