Shariah Compliant Guidelines on the Use of Gadgets

The globalization and borderless world make everyone of different ages, extremely reliant on gadgets. Every individual are now introduced to electronic gadgets since infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood until elderhood. Today, a wide range of innovations and applications are exposed to the public and can be easily accessed using mobile phones, personal computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones. Gadgets have been optimized to get quick information at the fingertips via a virtual platform. Gadgets help to save time, energy and simplify people's day-to-day affairs in these challenging era. The use of gadgets has also been identified to enhance the ability of people to think and reason. There are many positive effects on the use of gadgets. Nevertheless, misuse of the gadget also can lead to serious harm and pose a significant threat to society, especially to adolescents. Some of the adverse effects of gadgets may lead to nomophobia (addiction to gadgets) as well as exposure to harmful elements that contradict with religious values such as pornography, violence, gangsterism and deviant culture. Islam does not reject technology, but its use must be in line with Islamic values and principles. Therefore, it is vital study the impact of the use of gadgets towards humans, Muslims in particular. Thus, this concept paper will identify the shariah-compliant guidelines for the use of gadgets, concerning to the preservation of intellect (hifz al-‘aql) from Maqasid Shariah perspective. This qualitative study employs the exploratory approach to accomplish the research objective. The content analysis method is used to identify the Islamic principles and guidelines for current context of gadget application. It is hoped that the guidelines presented will serve as an indicator or benchmark for the public to use the latest technology according to the Shariah rulings.