Somewhere tonight, a stranger you will never meet may be looking at a photograph of your child. You posted it with love — perhaps an Eid picture, a first day of school, a birthday or an ordinary family moment. You know why you shared it. What you cannot know is where that image may eventually end up.
That uncomfortable reality sits at the intersection of two conversations that may initially appear unrelated: an ancient Islamic understanding of guarding blessings from unnecessary exposure, and a thoroughly modern debate about artificial intelligence, privacy and the exploitation of photographs online.
The two should not be confused. AI-generated abuse is not the same thing as the evil eye. But the latest controversies surrounding artificial intelligence raise a question Muslims have been taught to consider for centuries: must everything precious to us be made visible to everyone?
When AI became a weapon
From late December 2025 into January 2026, Grok — the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI and integrated into X — became the centre of an international backlash after users exploited its image-generation capabilities to create sexualised and non-consensual images of real people.
Among the most disturbing concerns were images involving children.
The UK-based Internet Watch Foundation said its analysts discovered criminal imagery on a dark-web forum that appeared to have been created using Grok. Users had reportedly boasted of using the tool to generate sexualised images of girls aged between 11 and 13 — material the watchdog said would constitute child sexual abuse material under UK law.
The concern quickly moved beyond campaign groups. Britain’s communications regulator Ofcom opened a formal investigation into X in January, examining whether the platform had adequately protected users from illegal content, including non-consensual intimate imagery and material that may amount to child sexual abuse material.
The European Commission subsequently launched its own formal investigation under the Digital Services Act into risks linked to Grok’s integration into X. Indonesia became the first country to temporarily block access to the chatbot, with Malaysia following shortly afterwards until stronger safeguards were introduced.
The precise legal response differed from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. But the direction of concern was remarkably consistent: technology that enables photographs of real people — particularly women and children — to be sexually manipulated without consent presents a serious safeguarding problem.
Musk responded to some of the criticism by writing on X: “They want any excuse for censorship.”
But reducing the controversy to a debate about censorship obscures what made the episode so disturbing.
The danger was not merely that harmful images already existed somewhere online. Generative AI meant that an ordinary photograph could itself become raw material for something degrading or criminal.
A school photograph. A family holiday. A child’s Eid outfit. An image uploaded by a proud parent with entirely innocent intentions.
Once a photograph is uploaded, copied, screenshotted or redistributed, control over it can become increasingly difficult to recover.
And this is where an Islamic conversation about exposure becomes particularly relevant.
Al-‘Ayn: a reality in Islam
Rasulullah (SAW) said plainly: “The evil eye is real.” The statement is recorded in Sahih Muslim.
For Muslims, Al-‘Ayn — the evil eye — is therefore not merely folklore or superstition. It forms part of the Islamic understanding of unseen harm, occurring only by the decree of Allah.
Islamic tradition also teaches Muslims not to behave as though precaution contradicts trust in Allah. Tawakkul does not mean abandoning sensible measures to protect ourselves, our families or the blessings Allah has given us.
The Qur’an offers a striking example in the story of Prophet Ya’qub (AS). When sending his sons into Egypt, he instructed them:
“O my sons! Do not enter the city all through one gate, but through separate gates.”
— Surah Yusuf, 12:67
The verse itself does not explicitly mention the evil eye. However, classical commentators, including Ibn Kathir, recorded the view that Prophet Ya’qub (AS) feared that his sons — who would attract attention entering together — could be affected by it.
Significantly, Prophet Ya’qub (AS) immediately acknowledged that his precaution could not override Allah’s decree.
That balance matters.
Islam does not teach paranoia. It teaches precaution alongside tawakkul.
Must every blessing be displayed?
There is another Islamic principle worth revisiting in the age of social media: not every blessing needs an audience.
Modern platforms encourage precisely the opposite instinct.
The child must be posted. The holiday must be documented. The new home must be photographed. The anniversary, graduation, engagement, meal, achievement and gift become content.
What was once shared around a family table can now be displayed to hundreds or thousands of people, many of whom we barely know.
The Qur’an warns against arrogance and boastfulness:
“…so that you neither grieve over what you have missed nor boast over what He has granted you. For Allah does not like whoever is arrogant, boastful.”
— Surah Al-Hadid, 57:23
There is also the Islamic warning against riya — performing acts of worship in order to be seen and admired by others. Rasulullah (SAW) described showing off in worship as a form of minor shirk.
That hadith should not be stretched beyond its meaning. Posting a photograph of one’s family or celebrating a blessing online does not automatically constitute riya.
But the principle demands something deeply unfashionable in the social-media age: examining our intention.
Why do I need people to see this?
Would I still value this moment if nobody online knew it happened?
Am I expressing gratitude to Allah, or seeking validation from an audience?
And perhaps most importantly: does sharing this blessing publicly expose something — or someone — who does not need to be exposed?
Children cannot consent to a permanent digital footprint
This question becomes more serious when children are involved.
Adults may choose how much of themselves they wish to place online. Children frequently have that decision made for them before they are old enough to understand what a digital footprint is.
A toddler cannot meaningfully consent to having hundreds of photographs documenting his or her childhood placed on a public platform.
Nor can a child anticipate the technologies that may exist five or ten years from now.
The Grok controversy demonstrates how quickly the nature of that risk can change. A photograph that once appeared harmless can now potentially be manipulated in ways that would have been difficult for an ordinary person to achieve only a few years ago.
Islamic restraint, therefore, need not be understood as backwardness in a world obsessed with visibility.
It may increasingly look like wisdom.
What Muslims can actually do
Protection does not require retreating from technology or treating every photograph as dangerous. It requires judgement.
Families can reconsider whether photographs of their children need to appear on public accounts at all. Personal moments can be shared privately with relatives rather than broadcast to unknown audiences. Privacy settings matter, although they should never be mistaken for absolute protection.
Muslims can also revive the Prophetic etiquette of asking Allah to place barakah in what they admire, while reciting the protective duas and ruqyah taught in the Sunnah.
And before pressing “post”, perhaps another question deserves to become habitual:
Does the world really need access to this blessing?
For generations, Muslims understood that privacy was not always deprivation. Concealment could itself be protection.
Artificial intelligence has now added a frightening technological dimension to that wisdom.
Once a photograph enters the digital world, we cannot fully determine who will see it, save it, copy it or manipulate it. The answer is not fear, nor is it to abandon technology altogether.
It is to recover something Islam taught long before algorithms, smartphones or social media existed: not everything Allah gives us needs to be placed before the eyes of the world.
Some blessings are better kept close.
