Artificial Intelligence in Religious Certification: A Comprehensive Review of Halal Digitalization, Compliance Integrity, and Future Directions.

Global food supply chains continue to expand in scale and complexity, heightening risks of fraud, mislabeling, and cross-contamination across certification systems. These vulnerabilities are particularly consequential for Halal certification, where ingredient permissibility, compliant slaughter practices, hygienic processing, and full traceability are religiously mandated. Artificial intelligence (AI), including machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision (CV), predictive modeling, and sensor-enabled monitoring, offers transformative potential for strengthening the precision, transparency, and efficiency of Halal assurance. Current certification workflows often rely on manual document review, heterogeneous national standards, limited real-time oversight, and susceptibility to fraudulent or unregulated Halal claims. AI-enabled tools address these limitations by facilitating automated ingredient authentication through DNA-based analysis, alcohol threshold detection, enzyme origin classification, and advanced label interpretation. In slaughter and processing environments, CV systems and IoT sensors enable continuous monitoring of animal handling, cut accuracy, bleeding efficiency, and postslaughter segregation, generating objective evidence of compliance. Pilot implementations indicate that integrating AI with blockchain-based traceability and automated data pipelines can reduce certification timelines from weeks to days, improve anomaly detection to near-perfect accuracy, and support dynamic, continuously verifiable compliance rather than periodic audits. Within this context, AI operates effectively under a hybrid governance model in which religious authorities retain interpretive and theological decision-making while AI provides high-resolution, tamper-resistant documentation. Future advancements will depend on harmonized data standards, religious principle-aligned AI governance, strong ethical and cybersecurity safeguards, and wider regulatory acceptance across Islamic jurisdictions. Together, these efforts will enable next-generation Halal certification while preserving religious integrity and sustaining consumer trust.