E-Prosiding Persidangan Serantau Manasik Haji 2025 (MANASIK2025)

MANASIK2025 Putrajaya, Malaysia, 7-8 Oktober 2025 631 need for cautious, state-supervised adoption of AI-driven fatwa tools and suggesting avenues for further research. LITERATURE REVIEW Digital fatwa, online authority, and the platformization of Islamic guidance Over the last 10 – 15 years, the diffusion of Islamic guidance through digital platforms has transformed how Muslims search, assess, and apply scholarly opinions (fatāwā). Early mapping work on “Islam online” shows how authority has gradually decentralized f rom brick-and-mortar institutions to portals, social media pages, and mobile apps, with users expecting immediate, personalized answers that fit their contexts (Bunt, 2018) (Soleh, 2024). Malaysia, formal institutions have also moved online. State and federal bodies maintain searchable repositories (e.g., the Federal Territories e-Fatwa portal), which publish gazetted and non-gazetted opinions and provide structured access by topic, year, and status (e.g., warta vs. advisory) (e-Fatwa Mufti WP, n.d.). While these portals increase transparency and reach, they also elevate expectations that authoritative answers can be delivered “on demand,” intensifying pressure to standardize content and metadata across jurisdictions. Empirical studies in Malaysia underscore this platform effect. Research on social media and fatwa acceptance suggests that format, speed, and perceived credibility of digital channels shape lay compliance as much as scholarly reasoning does (Rosidi, 2021). Parallel work on ICT in fatwa management documents process gains (faster dissemination, better archiving) alongside persistent integration challenges between national and state systems (Alwi & Azizan, 2018). Collectively, this scholarship motivates a tech nical agenda: if digital consumption is “pull - based,” can safe, provenance - aware automation help users retrieve the right opinion for the right person and scenario — without eroding scholarly authority? Strengths/limitations. The digital-religion literature richly describes changing authority flows and user behavior, but it is largely descriptive. Few studies operationalize “authoritativeness” (e.g., alignment with jurisdiction, madhhab, and latest rulings), and almost none benchmark retrieval quality or error rates across portals/apps. This creates space for work that treats fatwa delivery as a safety-critical information problem requiring formal guarantees (traceability, auditability). Fatwa governance in Malaysia and implications for automation Malaysia’s fatwa ecosystem is constitutionally devolved: each state’s Mufti Committee issues fatāwā that may be gazetted and become binding within that state; national-level Muzakarah resolutions serve as irsyād (advisory) unless adopted by states. Official FAQs and legal commentaries emphasize that where national and state positions diverge, the state position prevails (Jabatan Mufti Selangor, n.d.). JAKIM’s i -FIQH and related portals collate national Muzakarah decisions and explanatory materials, but they do not override state jurisdiction (Rosele, 2017). The literature repeatedly flags standardization problems: inconsistent metadata, uneven publication of full sighah texts, and cross-state divergences that can confuse mobile publics (Zaini et al., 2012)(Mohd. Nasran & Zulfaqar, 2014). Policy papers note continuing efforts to synchronize publication practices (e.g., directives that state secretariats post decisions to both state and JAKIM portals), yet gaps remain in timeliness and coverage (Mahyudin et al., 2018). Strengths/limitations. Governance studies accurately describe authority lines and publication duties, offering clear design constraints for any AI system (always bind answers to the correct jurisdiction; expose sighah ; surface state adoptions). But they seldom translate these constraints into technical requirements (data schemas, APIs, versioning), leaving a socio-technical gap that algorithmic systems