Exploring the features influencing islamic website use and positive impact : a muslim user perspective

Abstract

Islam makes seeking for knowledge and practice compulsory upon both male and female, young and old, far and near. This has resulted in many Islamic organizations, governments, scholars, and individuals establishing an online presence to assist Muslims in fulfilling this obligation. Thousands of Islamic websites have been developed, making it possible for Muslims to learn and practise Islam and to interact with scholars from different parts of the world without having to travel. Nowadays, traditional face-to-face knowledge transfer is becoming increasingly less attractive. This has led to the creation of Islamic websites for knowledge transfer and other related activities, thus boosting Islamic activities and practices through online-Islam and Islam-online. Thus, the goal of this thesis is to identify the most important website features that influence Muslims to use Islamic websites’ religious activities as an alternative to visiting scholars at madrasah/masjid. It also investigates whether using Islamic websites has a positive impact on Muslim users’ religious obligations. Previous studies on Islamic websites focused on the dimensions of design and content in isolation. This study aggregates these dimensions with the religious dimension, their associated factors and features, website use and perceived positive impact. It proposes a model of Islamic Website Use (IWU). The model was analysed using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), partial least squares (PLS), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modelling (SEM). The data was collected through two-stage questionnaire-based surveys at the International Islamic University Malaysia. The two surveys were conducted in November-December 2012 and January-February 2013 with a total of 313 and 212 responses respectively. The results of the IWU model suggest that design, content, and religion are the major dimensions that influence the use of Islamic websites. The design dimension is measured by website attractiveness, interactivity, navigation, and security/privacy factors. The content dimension is measured by authorship, objectivity, reliability, and sources. The religious dimension is measured by religious beliefs, ethics, services, symbols, and values. Emphasizing these dimensions would increase the use of Islamic websites, which would consequently have a positive impact on users’ faith, knowledge, practice, actions, and closeness to Allah, which will ultimately make them better Muslims. Theoretically, this study provides a novel contribution in understanding Muslim users’ perceptions toward Islamic websites and their positive impact, and fills a gap in the literature. In addition, this research could be used as a basis to understand Islamic websites’ categorization, evaluation, and use. Empirically, it extends the use of multiple surveys and statistical analyses (EFA, PLS, CFA, and SEM) to develop new instruments and test a model to evaluate the features influencing the use of Islamic websites from Muslim users’ perspective. In practice, the findings of this research could assist Islamic website designers and developers to enhance their websites with the most significant design, content, and religious features in order to meet both the owners’ and users’ requirements and expectations.