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Fatwa CenterRuling on Making Robots in the Form of Living Beings
Question
Assalamu alaikum,From what I understand, creating 3D characters (humans or creatures) using AI for a video game in software such as Blender or Unreal Engine is considered haram.What about robots? What about a game that includes animal-inspired robots (e.g., dogs or birds) with a mechanical appearance, sensors, lights, and metallic parts? Obviously, they are inspired by animals, but the intention is not to imitate living beings. Rather, this is simply how robots might look in the real world.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
As long as these robots are designed in the form of a living being, such as a human or an animal, they take the ruling of sculpted statues of living beings, and the default ruling on making them is prohibition. Severe warnings have come against image-makers who rival the creation of Allah the Exalted. In both Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, it is reported from Aisha 
that she said: "The Messenger of Allah came in to see me after I had covered a small shelf of mine with a curtain bearing images. When he saw it, he tore it down, and his face changed color. He said: 'O Aisha, the people who will face the most severe punishment from Allah on the Day of Resurrection are those who imitate (Allah) in the act of His creation.'" Aisha said: "So we cut it up and made a cushion or two out of it."
The meaning of imitating the creation of Allah the Exalted is evident in the design of robots that mimic living beings and their forms, especially with the technological advances that have made it possible to build robots that closely resemble a human or an animal.
Nevertheless, the majority of scholars have exempted some cases from this ruling, among them children's toys meant to teach them and keep them company, and images and statues that are treated with disrespect, according to details well known among the scholars on these issues.
As for a robot whose design is incomplete, such that the form of a human or an animal does not appear in it clearly enough to resemble a living being, for example when it takes the shape of parts or figures that do not represent a living creature, it does not fall under the ruling on depicting living beings, and there is no harm in making it.
Allah Knows best
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