Foreword

Abstract

By the grace of Allah, it is a great pleasure to introduce this issue of: The International Journal on Islamic Applications in Computer Science and Technology.

During the 13th year of the publication of this Journal, this issue is the 53rd of this journal. We thank Allah for enabling us to continue all through these years.

With the wide specialization of this Journal, it attracted contributions from researchers from all over the world. We pray to Allah to put his “Baraka” in the contents of the Journal and spread the fruits of its contents in the future.

This issue contains two papers. The first one is entitled: Big Data Privacy and Ethical Concerns: An Islamic Perspective

The article addresses critical ethical dilemmas such as algorithmic bias, lack of transparency, unauthorized surveillance, and exploitation of personal and financial data, offering solutions that promote justice, fairness, and human dignity. By comparing Islamic ethical principles with secular frameworks like GDPR, the article demonstrates how Maqasid al-Shariah can fill ethical gaps in privacy protection, offering a more holistic and culturally sensitive model for data governance. While rooted in Islamic teachings, the framework is presented as a globally relevant approach that applies to both Muslim-majority and non-Muslim societies which concludes by calling for interdisciplinary research to integrate Islamic ethics with modern technological frameworks, promoting a more ethical, transparent, and socially responsible global data governance system.

The second paper is entitled: Embedding Tawhidic Epistemology in Ethical Decision-Making for Software Engineering Projects

This paper introduces a conceptual framework grounded in Tawhidic Epistemology (TE), which unifies revealed guidance from the Qur’an and Sunnah with empirical reasoning to embed Islamic ethics into project-based learning and Agile decision-making. The framework maps values such as Shura (consultation), Amanah (trust), Niyyah (intention), and Muhasabah (accountability) to project tasks, including problem selection, team formation, role delegation, and conflict resolution, while aligning them with Agile mechanisms. Methodologically, the study presents a conceptual model that requires empirical validation in student projects and industry teams. The contribution lies in positioning TE as a dual-layer paradigm, where revealed knowledge provides the ethical anchor and empirical practices serve as operational enablers, offering a roadmap for building ethically resilient and AI-ready software engineering ecosystems in Muslim-majority contexts. The framework is demonstrated through an illustrative scenario and outlines a phased validation strategy to support empirical adoption.