Reframing I’tibār al-maʾāl as an ethical framework for religious communication on social media.

Juristic disagreement (khilāf fiqhi) is an inherent feature of Islamic legal tradition, reflecting methodological diversity and interpretive plurality within fiqh. However, in the contemporary digital environment, such disagreement has increasingly migrated from scholarly and institutional settings into social media platforms, where it often generates public confusion, polarization, and contestation of religious authority. This shift positions khilāf fiqhi not merely as a legal issue, but as a complex problem of religious communication in the digital public sphere. Against this backdrop, this study examines how juristic disagreement operates on social media and proposes I’tibār al-maʾāl as an ethical and impact-based framework for managing religious disagreement online. Employing a qualitative research design, the study utilises document analysis of classical fiqh texts, works of uṣūl al-fiqh, contemporary fatwas, institutional guidelines, and selected social media discourses related to contested fiqh issues in Malaysia. The findings reveal that unmanaged digital communication of khilāf fiqhi intensifies polarisation and undermines public trust in religious institutions. The main contribution of this study lies in conceptually reframing I’tibār al-maʾāl as a communication-oriented framework, operationalised as a contentfiltering logic, a guide for ethical religious communication, and a social impact indicator. By integrating Islamic legal theory with media and communication perspectives, the study offers both theoretical advancement and practical guidance for managing juristic disagreement in Malaysia’s contemporary digital media landscape.