By Sumayyah Maszlee
Social media is an internet-based form of communication where the platforms allow users to have conversations, share information and create web content. The use of social media has been increasing over the years which used to be only among the youngsters but now also involves many elders. The increment of usage and time spent on social media platforms has been concerning as it can have positive and negative impacts in one’s life and well-being.
Ummah is a term for the Muslim world, or the community of believers. It is a concept to unite all Muslims so that they are not divided into classes in terms of racial or nationality. It is mentioned many times in the Qur’an referring to a group bounded by the religion of Islam within a large community. In simpler words, the community of people formed based on their commonality, Islam.
Nowadays, many challenges faced by the ummah’s unity especially with more knowledge of different views being spread around. The main platform used is social media, which makes it one of the major challenges towards the ummah. Despite the positive information and impacts of social media to the people, it is also misused in many ways, and caused chaos and misunderstandings among people that eventually break the unity of the ummah.
Social media is used by many such as the ones with bad intentions to spread hate and false rumors. This behavior could result in ruining muslims’ aqidah as many would be influenced by the negative comments shared to the public.
Aqidah in this context, refers to the faith of people in Islam, which could be tainted by the doubts people share based on their so called true knowledge when it is actually just pure opinion without in-depth research of Qur’an and Sunnah. This leads to arguments among Muslims as they defend their beliefs and want others to agree on it. It has also become a platform where people express their jealousy towards others’ achievements in the form of cyberbullying by throwing hate and encouraging others to do the same.
Not only has it been a platform for those expressing jealousy, but it has also become a place where people spread false rumors about others. Influencers that are striving, for instance, have haters that will create stories such as scandals to make the public have a bad impression on them. They intend to change the public’s perception of an individual due to their personal hatred towards the person. This does not only affect the individual being hated, but also causes groups of people to go against each other.
The use of social media has been increasing among those who want to voice their opinion to the public, which includes the issue of LGBT. It has been stated clearly in Islam that such thing is haram, and no matter what others have to say, it will still remain haram. With the influence of western ideologies in this matter, more Muslims are starting to agree and support it with the defense of being open minded. This is the wrong understanding because they try to justify haram matters. The unity of an ummah breaks when those with religious knowledge get criticized for fighting against the issue when in fact they are the ones in the right.
People should focus on making peace to unite the ummah instead of creating fights to stand up for themselves without listening to the opinion of others. One should always be open to listening to another as they might be more knowledgeable in a certain matter. Social media should be used appropriately to benefit the whole ummah which may lead to influencing the non-Muslims to Islam. ***
(This article is written as part of an individual assignment for Knowledge and Civilisation in Islam class)