Can a Da'i Remain Silent? Strategic Non-Communication and the Moral Economy of Islamic Publics during Digital Controversies

Abstract

This study examined how silence and restrained response were interpreted within Indonesian digital Islamic publics. Six public digital documents drawn from three controversy clusters between 2023 and 2026 formed the empirical material. Comparative archival digital ethnography and qualitative discourse analysis were used to trace how non-response, delayed response, and restrained speech were judged in relation to religious authority. The findings showed that silence remained legitimate when audiences could connect it to tabayyun, uncertainty, or the need to avoid premature judgment. Its legitimacy weakened when audiences perceived ongoing harm, selective concern, or a mismatch between public religious authority and public responsibility. The analysis developed Islamic communicative non-performance as a concept for situations in which an expected act of religious communication was perceived as missing and that absence affected evaluations of authority. The findings indicated that silence in digital da'wah was neither communicatively empty nor automatically blameworthy, since its meaning depended on the moral expectations surrounding the religious actor and the controversy.