Tazkiyah al-Nafs and Digital Piety: Redefining Spiritual Practices among Older Muslim Women
Abstract
This study explores the redefinition of spiritual practices through the lens of tazkiyah al-nafs and digital piety among urban Muslim women in the domestic sphere. Amid spiritual marginalization and urban isolation, the research examines how technology serves as a spiritual mediator and a “virtual ṭariqah” that facilitates religious independence. Using an interpretive phenomenological design, data were collected from ten elderly Muslim women in Jember who integrate artificial intelligence (AI) and digital devices into their daily rituals. The findings reveal the emergence of "Cyber-Sufism," where participants actively de-institutionalize Sufi practices by establishing “personal Islamic boarding schools” at home. From a psychospiritual perspective, they undergo a digitally mediated dialectic of takhallī (reducing existential anxiety), taḥallī (independent spiritual learning), and tajallī (attaining inner peace/nafs al-muṭma’innah), which aligns with the theory of gerotranscendence. The study argues that this transformation creates a new spiritual agency, turning domestic spaces into sacred micro-ecologies. This research recommends developing Sufi-based digital literacy to support the aging generation in the era of disruption. The study argues that Cyber-Sufism fundamentally reconfigures the boundaries between the sacred and the profane, offering a new theoretical model of autonomous spirituality that challenges the traditional dependency on institutionalized religious structures in late-life spiritual development.
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