IIUI Conference Demands Policy Action on AI and Decolonial Education
A Call to Action: Decolonial Thought and the Future of Knowledge
The International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) concluded its two-day international conference with a powerful message urging the integration of decolonial thought into policy-making. The event emphasized the urgent need to protect Indigenous knowledge systems, particularly in the context of artificial intelligence (AI), which was identified as a new frontier for epistemic extraction.
Key Recommendations from the Conference
The closing session, led by Prof. Dr. Ahmed Shuja Syed, Vice President for Research and Enterprise at IIUI, brought together the central themes of the conference. These were formalized into recommendations that organizers plan to submit to relevant policy forums. Dr. Muhammad Sheeraz Dasti, co-convener of the conference, presented these findings, highlighting the necessity of incorporating economic literacy into humanities curricula. This approach aims to ensure that decoloniality addresses the material structures of power rather than remaining symbolic.
In discussing AI, the conference made it clear that this technology is not separate from colonial logic but an extension of it. It concentrates computational power and data ownership within a few corporations while extracting Indigenous and non-Western knowledge, often stripping it of its origins and rebranding it as Western innovation. The recommendations stressed that AI literacy in universities should not merely involve familiarizing students with tools but equipping them to question whose interests those tools serve and how to redirect them toward local epistemologies.
Reorienting the Decolonial Project
Prof. Dr. Ahmed Shuja Syed, in his closing address, reoriented the conference around the individual as the starting point of any decolonial project. He proposed a three-circle framework: the human being at the center, society and the universe in the second circle, and the third reaching beyond the universe. According to him, Indigenous thought is the organizing principle that holds all three in relation. He described ta'assub, the deep-rooted conviction in one's inherited worldview, not as a weakness but as a generative force and the true gateway to recentring Indigenous thought.
He also pointed to brain-to-brain interface communication as an imminent technological reality where Indigenous thought would become essential rather than peripheral. He urged that the conference’s recommendations reach policy forums without delay.
Decoloniality as a Lived Practice
Dr. Asma Mansoor, convener of the conference, reiterated the conviction that had framed its opening: decoloniality must break free of its discursive straitjacket and become a lived, material practice. She argued that theory without praxis is performance. IIUI's own archive of Persian, Arabic, and Islamic scholarship, she noted, remains a largely untapped resource, a reminder that decolonial work begins at home.
On AI, she was unequivocal: these systems are not neutral and must be critically interrogated, not uncritically adopted.
Exploring New Frontiers
The parallel sessions on Day 2 covered a wide range of topics, including postcolonial subjectivities, gendered decolonialities, technology and epistemic violence, literary resistance, and political discourses from the Global South.
Muhammad Nauman Awan’s paper on reimagining data sovereignty in the age of algorithms argued that the question of who owns data is inseparable from the question of who owns knowledge. Dr. Rehana Gulzar’s research on AI chatbots as instruments of indigenous language revitalisation offered one of the conference’s rare convergences of technological optimism and decolonial purpose.
The second panel discussion on decolonising technologies brought together scholars and technologists, including Dr. Muneera Bano of CSIRO's Data61 laboratory in Australia, examining the tensions that emerge when decolonial aspiration meets technological infrastructure.
Closing Remarks and Acknowledgments
Dr. Saiyma Aslam, Chairperson of the Department of English and Co-Convener, delivered the vote of thanks, expressing gratitude to IIUI's Acting Rector and President Prof. Dr. Ahmed Saad Alahmed for his patronage, to the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan for its support, and to the organising committee and faculty for their tireless efforts. Certificates were distributed and formal proceedings concluded.
A Global Gathering of Scholars
The conference attracted scholars from Australia, South Africa, Oman, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada, Algeria, and across Pakistan. Over two days, it featured four keynote addresses, eight parallel academic sessions, and two panel discussions in a hybrid format.