Qur’anic Ethics and the Governance of Visibility in Indonesian Muslim Digital Philanthropy

Abstract

This article examines how Qur’anic values of almsgiving and platform infrastructures jointly select the visibility of digital philanthropic campaigns in Indonesia. The central problem is not merely whether crowdfunding is normatively permissible, but how need is transformed into a narrative that can be verified, promoted, and converted into donations without compromising the dignity of recipients. The study employs a qualitative critical platform-studies approach with mechanism tracing across twenty-four public campaign metadata records selected on a purposive and contrastive basis, together with platform policy documents, regulations on the collection of money or goods, and interpretations of Qur’anic verses on almsgiving, trust (amānah), the prohibition of causing harm, and human dignity. The findings reveal three mutually reinforcing thresholds: the legibility of need, amplification through religious rhythms and networks, and accountability through verification and public metrics. Together these constitute an algorithmic moral selection a sociotechnical process that renders certain needs easier to recognize, trust, and fund than others. Public visibility is not automatically ostentation (riyāʾ); the ethical problem arises when trust is reduced to metric performance, when evidence of need requires excessive exposure, and when popularity displaces the assessment of need. The article extends the concept of amānah from the governance of funds to the governance of stories, images, data, and the distribution of attention, and offers design principles that safeguard accountability, human dignity (karāmah), and the equitable distribution of solidarity.