Digital Media and the Transformation of Religious Authority: An Empirical Study of Islamic Scholarship in the Social Media Era

Abstract

This article examines how digital media have reconfigured the foundations of religious authority in contemporary Islam, focusing specifically on the practices of Islamic scholarship in the social media era. Drawing together a substantial body of empirical research conducted across Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Muslim minority communities in the West, the study traces the movement of interpretive authority away from formally credentialed institutions and toward networked, algorithmically mediated actors. It argues that the transformation is not merely a change in the medium through which religious knowledge travels, but a deeper epistemological reconstruction in which visibility metrics, audience engagement, and platform logic increasingly compete with classical qualifications such as sanad (chains of scholarly transmission) and institutional oversight. The analysis identifies several interrelated dynamics: the fragmentation of a previously unified interpretive field; the emergence of religious influencers whose legitimacy is performative rather than scholarly; the renegotiation of gendered authority as women scholars enter digital space; the strategic digital re-engagement of established institutions such as Al-Azhar, Dar al-Iftāʾ, and the Indonesian Ulama Council; and the new epistemic risks introduced by AI-assisted religious guidance. The article concludes that digital religious authority is best understood as fluid, co-produced with audiences, and continuously contested, and it outlines the implications of this shift for religious literacy, institutional credibility, and the integrity of Islamic jurisprudence.