Article Preview
Top1. Introduction
Scholars in the literature of information, communication, and technologies (ICT) study the effect of such instruments and gadgets on the personality (Dalvi-Esfahani et al., 2020), education (Gómez, 2020), society (Smutny & Vehovar, 2020), and economics and business environments of humans (Fernández et al., 2020; Köttl et al., 2020). However, they rarely address the relation between religion and ICT usage. This rarity may be understandable in Western societies due to the fact that religion is kept in the worship houses and away from civil society where governed by the congressional and legislative houses. However, this is not the case for Muslim countries in the Middle East. In addition, the fast developments in the ICT field have critical influential effects on human life in general. The technology revolution began with the personal computer, then quickly transformed into different styles and innovations to satisfy personal needs, such as multimedia exchanges, commercial transactions, social discussions, and gaming.
Muslim societies are more religious than Western societies (Hofstede, 2014). Their spiritual and religious beliefs are reflected in almost every facet of life. You can find religion as the reasoning behind their ways of eating, conversing, politics, business, and other dimensions. Further, since religion has this enormous effect on a Muslim’s life, it can also have an influential effect on their decision regarding the ICT in general and the use of mobile applications specifically (Bhatti et al., 2020). Furthermore, Muslims respect their privacy, and this is related to two dimensions of their personality. First, their religion embraces a respect for privacy. For example, Allah says in Verse 27 of the Surah Noor in the Quran: “O you who believe! Enter not houses other than your own, until you have asked permission and greeted those in them; that is better for you, in order that you may remember”. There are other verses and surahs that are along the same theme, such as Verses 58 and 53 in Surah Noor. Second, many scholars also find this respect for privacy in the social and cultural values of Muslims, specially the studies by Geert Hofstede (Hofstede, 2014).
Accordingly, cultural and spiritual values were not studied. The majority of publications of scholars in the region do not focus on religion as determinant of privacy and intention to use of mobile applications. Instead, scholars give more attention towards well studied factors such as hedonic motivation factors (Al-Azawei & Alowayr, 2020; Baabdullah, et al., 2019), trust (Hassan & Wood, 2020; Julsrud & Krogstad, 2020), risk and security (Abed, 2020; Alkhowaiter, 2020; Hassan & Wood, 2020), social influence (Baabdullah et al., 2019; Hassan & Wood, 2020). However, it rare to find studies published in well-respected journals that integrate spirituality and religion in adoption models.