LOVE, EGO, AND DIGITAL COMMUNICATION ETHICS: A RUMI BASED READING OF QS AL-ḤUJURĀT [49]: 11–13

Abstract

This article examines digital communication ethics through a Sufi reading of QS al-Ḥujurāt [49]: 11-13 based on Jalaluddin Rumi’s Fihi Ma Fihi. The background of this study is the ethical crisis of digital speech, marked by mockery, insults, offensive labeling, hoaxes, suspicion, public shaming, and digital backbiting. This study uses a qualitative method with a library research design. The primary sources are the Qur’an, especially QS al-Ḥujurāt [49]: 11–13, and Rumi’s Fihi Ma Fihi, while the secondary sources include classical and contemporary tafsir, Sufi literature, and studies on digital communication ethics. The analysis shows that QS al-Ḥujurāt [49]: 11–13 provides a normative foundation for communication ethics by prohibiting mockery, suspicion, spying, and backbiting, while affirming ta‘āruf as the basis of human relations. Rumi’s Sufi perspective deepens these values by locating 
destructive speech in the unpurified heart. Mockery comes from ego, suspicion from inner darkness, and backbiting from the loss of love and self-restraint. This article concludes that Islamic digital ethics should not only regulate external speech and information sharing, but also cultivate tawadhu, tabayyun, compassion, human dignity, and muhasabah. Rumi’s education of love offers a spiritual foundation for 
transforming digital speech into ethical communication. 

Keywords: digital communication; QS al-Ḥujurāt; Jalaluddin Rumi; Sufi ethics