Computer Science editorial
Open AccessOA2025
Religious Diversity and the Digital Economy: Legal–Academic Pathways to Harmonize Sharia and International Law
This article examines how Sharia principles and international legal standards converge and diverge across five digital-economy domains, proposing a harmonization roadmap to foster fairness and interfaith dialogue.
L. Hasanah; M. Faisal; Zahoor Ahmed; M. Hasyim· International Journal of Law and Social Sciences· 2025· DOI 10.65960/ijlss.1.1.2025.8
The core problem
The rapid expansion of the digital economy has created new opportunities for commerce, communication, and innovation, but it has also raised complex legal and ethical challenges with significant implications for religious communities. Fraudulent halal certifications, algorithmic bias against devotional content, misinformation campaigns that inflame interfaith tensions, and fintech models that risk violating prohibitions on riba, gharar, and maisir illustrate how digital governance intersects with both Sharia principles and international legal standards. This article examines five key areas where these frameworks converge and diverge: consumer protection, privacy of religious data, online speech and blasphemy-adjacent harms, fintech ethics, and cross-border e-contract recognition.
Innovation
Employing a normative–comparative method, the study analyzes statutory instruments, international guidelines, and Sharia jurisprudence to identify points of compatibility and conflict. The comparative approach systematically contrasts provisions from international legal frameworks (e.g., consumer protection directives, data privacy regulations, human rights instruments) with Sharia rulings derived from primary sources such as the Qur'an, Sunnah, and classical fiqh, as well as contemporary fatwas and maqāṣid al-sharīʿah literature. This dual lens enables the identification of shared norms and persistent divergences across the five domains under investigation.
Introduction
The rapid expansion of the digital economy has created new opportunities for commerce, communication, and innovation, but it has also raised complex legal and ethical challenges with significant implications for religious communities. Fraudulent halal certifications, algorithmic bias against devotional content, misinformation campaigns that inflame interfaith tensions, and fintech models that risk violating prohibitions on riba, gharar, and maisir illustrate how digital governance intersects with both Sharia principles and international legal standards. This article examines five key areas where these frameworks converge and diverge: consumer protection, privacy of religious data, online speech and blasphemy-adjacent harms, fintech ethics, and cross-border e-contract recognition.
Why it matters
To address these tensions, the article proposes a harmonization roadmap: soft-law guidance for platforms, model clauses for e-contracts, judicial canons grounded in maqāṣid al-sharīʿah and human rights, regulatory sandboxes for Sharia-compliant fintech, academic partnerships for training and audits, and monitoring metrics for accountability. This roadmap aims to transform the digital marketplace into a site of fairness, inclusivity, and constructive interfaith dialogue. The analysis underscores that harmonization is not about erasing differences but about creating procedural and substantive mechanisms that respect both religious and international legal commitments. By integrating maqāṣid al-sharīʿah with human rights frameworks, the proposed pathways offer a balanced approach to governing the digital economy in religiously diverse societies.
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