Does Technology Facilitates Religion in Today’s World?

Not just religion, technology has influenced everything in today’s world. It has become easier for preachers to use technology as a medium for communication.

As I’m not well versed on how preachers of Hinduism, Christianity or Zionism are utilizing technological advancements, so I’d prefer to focus on Islam alone.

I happen to come across Daneyal Sufi, a lecturer on cultural studies, and tried to know his insight on the subject. He believes that technology has been a blessing in disguise to communicate with large number of people in a relatively shorter period of time.

“There are (now) radio stations devoted to Quran’s recitation and translation. There is a wooden spreader on which the Quran is kept for recitation as it makes it higher so the necks don’t sprain,” he tells me.

Sufi had made a solid point, but as he is an accomplished academician, I expected this sort of a response from him. But my hunger to get a more detailed perspective led me to Osama Bin Azhar, an undergrad student pursuing computer science.

Osama preferred to link the technological advancements to the time approximately some 1,400 years ago. During the time of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), Osama tells me, the preachers preaching the religion had to go to different parts of the world on foot — which was a slow process.

With a revolution in communication industry, preaching has literally gone viral. Now we have Television and internet to communicate with millions in no time at all.

Osama’s input made me search on a bit of preaching organizations on the internet. I was amused to see a Facebook page with a massive following. Nauman Ali Khan uses social media to upload short videos and posts on religious topics to interact with his followers.

However, it is a famous saying that where there is good, there will always be bad. People say there are many those who mislead their followers using the very same medium. But look at it this way: medium is not the problem, it is the message.

For me, medium is like a knife. It can be used to commit a murder or to spread butter on a bread toast. It is a matter of one’s intentions.

Osama puts it aptly when he say, “Medium is only there to facilitate. It has nothing to do with leading or misleading towards the right path.”

I was pretty much satisfied with the information I had succeeded in obtaining, but I felt there was still something missing; a version from someone belonging to a totally opposite discipline. So, there I went to meet Yasir Siddiqui, who is a management executive in one of the city’s prominent software developing company.

Just a heads up, as Yasir’s take on the subject is going to be business-centric, which will be looking on the results the medium had achieved thus far.

“Social media has its own perks and challenges. Social media can be a facilitator to religion but in limited edition. It has given right to every Tom, Dick and Harry to speak up and share their voice, no matter how dangerous or obnoxious that voice would be,” he says.

Yasir believes that in order to learn or seek something “you first have to be loyal and sincere to your own self”, which helps a person in better understanding the message being delivered.

“But social media has taken away that very essence,” he adds.

For Yasir, most of the people on social media are less sincere towards them and have become “narcissistic” as they only tend to care about their opinion and do not respect disagreement.