A fiqh AI should do one thing well: help you find what a marjaʿ has actually ruled on a question of Islamic law, and show you where that ruling comes from. Ahkam101 is exactly that — an AI assistant for Islamic jurisprudence built on the published works of Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani. Ask in plain language, in English, Arabic, Farsi, or Urdu, and get an answer drawn from his rulings with a citation to the specific book and ruling number so you can verify it yourself.
Fiqh is the practical understanding of Islamic law — the rulings that govern worship, money, family, and daily conduct — derived by a qualified jurist from the Qur'an and the hadith. A fiqh AI does not perform that derivation. What it does is make an existing body of rulings searchable in natural language, so that instead of paging through a manual you can ask a question the way you would ask a person and be taken straight to the relevant ruling. Ahkam101 is deliberately narrow in this sense: it is a retrieval and reading tool over Ayatollah Sistani's published works, not a source of new legal opinions.
Most general chatbots answer jurisprudence questions from an undefined mixture of internet text, which quietly blends schools of thought and sometimes invents references. Ahkam101 works the other way around. It retrieves from a defined corpus of 49,636 indexed passages across 18 official books — among them Minhaj al-Salihin, Tawdih al-Masail Jameh, and Islamic Laws — plus 6,500+ answered questions from the sistani.org Q&A archive. The model is constrained to what those sources say, every answer carries a citation to the specific book and page or ruling, and a validation layer removes any citation that cannot be traced back to a retrieved passage. The full pipeline is documented on the methodology page.
The corpus spans the standard chapters of practical jurisprudence. Coverage reflects what Ayatollah Sistani has actually published — where his works are silent on a question, Ahkam101 tells you so rather than guessing.
Rulings on tahara, wudu and ghusl, najasat, and the conditions, times, and doubts of daily salat — including prayer while traveling and making up missed prayers.
The rules of sawm in Ramadan and its expiations, alongside khums: what it applies to, how the year is calculated, and where it is paid.
Everyday muʿamalat — sales, loans, and contracts — plus marriage, divorce, and inheritance as treated in the published rulings.
Questions of halal and haram in ingredients and slaughter, and contemporary medical and bioethics matters addressed in Sistani's works and Q&A archive.
Ayatollah Sistani's rulings are published in Arabic, Persian, and English. Ahkam101 searches all three at once, so a ruling is found in whichever language it was originally written — then explained back to you in yours. You can ask in English, Arabic, Farsi, or Urdu. As an online assistant it is available 24/7 — day or night, you can check a ruling the moment the question comes up. The free plan includes 12 questions a month.
Ahkam101 is built by Mārefa Source — hawza-trained scholars studying at the Dars al-Kharij level, working alongside leaders and engineers from the technology industry, including Meta and AI startups. The scholarship keeps the rulings faithful to the source texts; the engineering keeps retrieval and citation honest. It is not affiliated with the office of Sayyid al-Sistani.
Yes. Ahkam101 is a fiqh AI: it answers questions of Islamic jurisprudence from the published rulings of Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani. Rather than answering from general training data, it retrieves the relevant ruling from a defined corpus of 49,636 indexed passages across 18 official books plus 6,500+ answered questions from the sistani.org Q&A archive, and cites the exact source on every answer.
The best fiqh AI for you is the one that answers from the marjaʿ you actually follow and lets you check its work. Ahkam101 is built for followers of Ayatollah Sistani: a single-marja corpus, retrieval from the original Arabic, Persian, and English source texts, and a verifiable citation to a specific book and ruling on every answer, so you are never asked to simply trust the model.
It can retrieve and explain existing rulings, which is what most everyday jurisprudence questions require. Ahkam101 does not derive new rulings or issue fatwas. It searches the published works of Ayatollah Sistani, quotes the applicable ruling, and cites it. If no relevant ruling is found in the corpus, it says so rather than inventing an answer.
The corpus covers the standard chapters of practical fiqh: purification (tahara), prayer (salat), fasting (sawm), khums and zakat, hajj and ziyara, transactions (muʿamalat), marriage and family, food and drink (halal and haram), and contemporary medical and bioethics questions. Coverage reflects what Ayatollah Sistani has published; where his works are silent, Ahkam101 does not fill the gap on its own.
You can ask in English, Arabic, Farsi, or Urdu, and the answer returns in the language you used. The underlying rulings are retrieved in their three original publication languages — Arabic, Persian, and English — so a ruling is found in whichever language it was published, not only where an English translation happens to exist.
No. A fiqh AI is a research and reference tool. Ahkam101 helps you find and read the relevant published ruling quickly, but it is not a marjaʿ and does not replace one. For matters of consequence, confirm with your marjaʿ's office or a qualified scholar.
Yes. Ahkam101 is an online assistant you can use anytime, day or night — there are no office hours, so you can check a ruling the moment a question comes up. Usage follows the plan limits (12 questions a month on the free plan, 100 on Premium), but the service itself is available around the clock.
Ahkam101 is an educational assistant, not a marjaʿ, nor a substitute for one. Answers are generated from published rulings of Ayatollah Sayyid Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani and may contain errors. For matters of consequence, please confirm with your marjaʿ's office or a qualified scholar. Ahkam101 is not affiliated with the office of Sayyid al-Sistani.