Ask the Kitab: AI Q&A from Your Pondok's Own Books, with References

Teachers often need to find one discussion again: the conditions for an act of worship, the differing opinions in a chapter, the definition of a term. Opening several kitab one by one takes time. Ask the Kitab, in e-pondok’s Asisten menu, speeds this up. It doesn’t invent answers; it searches the kitab your pondok uploaded and answers with references.

Not an AI that makes things up

The biggest worry about AI in a pesantren is hallucination: an AI answering confidently but wrongly, or inventing evidence. That happens with general AI answering from the model’s memory.

Ask the Kitab uses RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation):

1. Search first, in your pondok’s own kitab corpus and nowhere else
2. Find the relevant passages by meaning, not just matching words
3. Compose the answer only from those passages, with [1], [2] markers that point to the kitab, chapter, and page

When the passages found aren’t relevant enough, Ask the Kitab doesn’t guess. It says plainly that the kitab in the corpus don’t cover the question.

What goes into the corpus

Pondok admins upload the files themselves:

• PDFs with selectable text (scanned, image-only PDFs aren’t supported yet)
• DOCX, TXT, or MD for translations, modules, and teaching notes

Arabic, Indonesian, and transliterated Arabic text are supported. The system recognizes the structure of a kitab (kitab, bab, fasal) so each reference says where it comes from, plus the page number for PDFs. Each document’s status (queued, processing, ready, or failed with the reason) is visible on the Kitab Corpus tab.

Search by meaning, across languages

Keyword search matches words. Ask the Kitab matches meaning, so a question in Indonesian can find an Arabic passage and vice versa. Answers are written in the language the question was asked in.

Who uses it

Ask the Kitab is available to pondok admin and staff (pengurus) accounts in the Asisten menu (Pro plan). Chat history is stored per account and visible only to its owner. Students and parents don’t access it directly.

Benefits for teachers and the pondok

• Find discussions faster: one question searches several kitab at once
• Checkable references: every [n] marker opens the original passage
• The pondok stays in control: admins set references per answer, topics the assistant won’t serve, and a monthly question limit

A study aid, not a fatwa

Ask the Kitab doesn’t replace the ustadz. For questions about a ruling on someone’s own situation, the answer shows what the kitab say along with an adab note to confirm with an ustadz.

Security and privacy

Every pondok’s corpus is separate: search is always limited to your own pondok’s kitab. Original files are kept in e-pondok’s storage, and deleting a document from the corpus also deletes its search index. Other security standards are covered in pondok data security.

Summary

Ask the Kitab brings AI to a pesantren in an accountable way: it answers only from your pondok’s own kitab, cites its references, and says so when the corpus doesn’t cover a question. Uploaded kitab can also be recorded in the digital pesantren library.

Book a demo on WhatsApp to try Ask the Kitab with your pondok’s own kitab.