When Ritual Becomes Content: Platform Culture and the Algorithmic Reformatting of Islamic Practice

Abstract

Existing studies explained digital religion through changes in communication, authority, identity, and community, but did not sufficiently clarify how Islamic ritual was reorganised when religious practice became platform content. This study examined how platform culture reformatted the temporal, embodied, authoritative, and participatory dimensions of Islamic practice. It used a qualitative literature review with conceptual and thematic analysis of English, Indonesian, and Malay publications issued between 2020 and 2026. The findings showed that ritual became platform legible through temporal compression, the separation of devotional fragments from their initial settings, and the selective presentation of bodies, voices, and sacred spaces. Platform visibility changed how religious guidance was encountered by making some figures and interpretations easier to find, although repeated exposure and visible metrics did not automatically create religious authority. Authority remained dependent on recognised learning, institutional ties, prior trust, and the judgments of Muslim publics. User participation extended ritual through sharing, reuse, discussion, and digital coordination, but these forms differed in depth and could not all be treated as complete ritual participation. The study proposed platformed ritual reformatting as a recursive process through which Islamic practice was reshaped during content production, visibility, and later reuse without being fully determined by platform technology.