The Muslim Family Between Commitment to Identity and the Challenges of Cultural Invasion: A Critical Study

Abstract

Islamic law has given great importance to the family, regulating its rulings and distributing roles among its members, defining rights and duties. This has resulted in numerous laws aimed at preserving the family, protecting its privacy, and ensuring its integration into Islamic society in accordance with the guidance of the Holy Quran and the purified Sunnah. This is done to safeguard the family and solidify its religious identity, as it is the foundation of society and the source of the human race. The family's identity is the basis for classifying and defining society. This explains the intense focus of Islamic law on the family and the care of its members. It begins with the very inception of the family by defining the conditions for marriage and the qualities of a spouse qualified to build a family. Then comes the regulation of the relationship between spouses in its finest details, followed by the legal framework for the care and rights of children, and then the rights of parents, and the roles between husband and wife according to human nature. Thus, the regulation progresses vertically and horizontally within the family structure, ultimately leading to the broader social organization. In our present era, the family faces significant challenges in light of cultural invasion. This is a result of the negative repercussions of the digital revolution, communication applications, artificial intelligence, and the transformations associated with them. These have led to a breach of family security, harming its cohesion and the interaction of its members. We are now on the verge of a shift in the structure of societal values, following the spread of foreign cultures with their negative aspects and their violation of the privacy of the family, which Islam has always been keen to preserve. Family life has often become public property due to the influence of cultural invasion. The result has been a disintegration of values, a weakening of family belonging, and a prevalence of alienation among members of the same family. Deviant and extremist ideas have swept through decision-making under the guise of independence before maturity. We are now facing a digital environment in a world often devoid of ethics and societal values, leading to the imposition of a foreign culture by virtue of the characteristics of cultural invasion and its digital tools. We are not claiming that the digital revolution is entirely negative; rather, it has many positive aspects. However, its negative aspects stem from its threat to religious identity, its violation of family security, particularly that of women, and its direct impact through the cultural invasion it brings, which is incompatible with Islam and the sound traditions of our society. This has a direct effect on the erosion of religious and social identity under the guise that the world has become a small village, thus necessitating our assimilation into other cultures, our submission to their invasion and ideology, and the abandonment of our own culture, awareness, upbringing, and identity. We are not claiming that the digital revolution is entirely negative in all its aspects; on the contrary, it is positive in many ways. Therefore, in this study, we attempt to clarify the nature of cultural invasion and highlight its most significant negative aspects, particularly its impact on the religious identity of the Muslim family. In contrast, we identify the most important aspects of Islamic legislation in preserving the family, ensuring its privacy, strengthening its identity, and regulating its internal dynamics and, consequently, its relationship with the wider society.