Exploring health information needs in Islamic contexts through health fatwa questions in Saudi Arabia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47989/ir31ISIC65137Keywords:
Health Information Behaviour, Health Fatwas, Health Information needs, Health decision-making, Saudi ArabiaAbstract
Introduction. Many people with chronic illness in Saudi Arabia ask fatwas to align healthcare and worship with Islamic teachings. This study examines the health-religious information needs expressed in these questions.
Method. The research adopted a qualitative approach and analysed 340 health-related fatwas about chronic illness collected from approved Sunni platforms (Ibn Baz, Ibn ʿUthaymīn, Saad al-Khathlan, IslamWeb, and IslamQA).
Analysis. The 320 fatwa questions were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis to identify the main patterns of religion-related health information needs.
Results. A range of religion-related health information needs were identified in the fatwa questions, showing how faith shapes people’s decisions and everyday health concerns.
Conclusion. This study maps how chronically ill Muslims in Saudi Arabia express religion-related health information needs through fatwa questions, showing that faith routinely structures everyday health decision-making. Recognising fatwas as authoritative information sources can guide culturally sensitive health information services and encourage practical collaboration between clinicians and religious scholars.
References
Abolaban, H., & Al-Moujahed, A. (2017). Muslim patients in Ramadan: A review for primary care physicians. Avicenna Journal of Medicine, 7(3), 81–87. https://doi.org/10.4103/ajm.AJM_76_17
Alasmari, A., & Zhou, L. (2019). What health information are consumers seeking? A comparison between two types of online Q&A sites. In G. Meiselwitz (Ed.), Social Computing and Social Media. Communication and Social Communities (pp. 79–89). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21905-5_7
Alduraywish, S. A., Altamimi, L. A., Aldhuwayhi, R. A., AlZamil, L. R., Alzeghayer, L. Y., Alsaleh, F. S., Aldakheel, F. M., & Tharkar, S. (2020). Sources of health information and their impacts on medical knowledge perception among the Saudi arabian population: Cross-sectional study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(3), e14414. https://doi.org/10.2196/14414
Al-Kandari, A. A., & Dashti, A. (2014). Fatwa and the internet: A study of the influence of Muslim religious scholars on internet diffusion in Saudi Arabia. Prometheus, 32(2), 127–144. https://doi.org/10.1080/08109028.2014.998929.
Alyemny, O., Al-Khalifa, H., & Mirza, A. (2023). A data-driven exploration of a new Islamic fatwas dataset for Arabic NLP tasks. Data, 8(10). https://doi.org/10.3390/data8100155
Amin, M. E. K., & Abdelmageed, A. (2020). Clinicians’ perspectives on caring for Muslim patients considering fasting during Ramadan. Journal of Religion and Health, 59(3), 1370–1387. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-019-00820-y
Berger, A., Baram-Tsabari, A., & Golan, O. (2023). How do religious “ask the expert sites” shape online religious authorities? From clerics to online influencers. Religions, 14(4), 444. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14040444
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2019). Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 11(4), 589–597. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2019.1628806
Bronstein, J. (2017). An examination of social and informational support behavior codes on the internet: The case of online health communities. Library & Information Science Research, 39(1), 63–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2017.01.006
Caidi, N. (2019). Pilgrimage to hajj: An information journey. The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion, 3(1), 44–76. https://doi.org/10.33137/ijidi.v3i1.32267
Caidi, N., Ekmekcioglu, C., Jamali, R., & Chandra, P. (2022, October 15). Socially-distant fasting: Information practices of young Muslims during pandemic. Information Research, 27. https://doi.org/10.47989/irisic2235
Caidi, N., & Innocenti, P. (2018, October 1). On being spiritual: Pilgrimage as an information context. In ISIC 2018: the Information Behaviour Conference. https://pureportal.strath.ac.uk/en/publications/on-being-spiritual-pilgrimage-as-an-information-context
Caidi, N., Nangia, P., Samson, H., Ekmekcioglu, C., & Olsson, M. (2025). Spiritual and religious information experiences: An annual review of information science and technology (ARIST) paper. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 77(1), 40-61. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24983
Campbell, H. A. (2012). Understanding the relationship between religion online and offline in a networked society. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 80(1), 64–93. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfr074
Chamsi-Pasha, H., & Albar, M. A. (2013). Western and Islamic bioethics: How close is the gap? Avicenna Journal of Medicine, 3(1), 8–14. https://doi.org/10.4103/2231-0770.112788
Cheong, P. H., Poon, J. P. H., Huang, S., & Casas, I. (2009). The internet highway and religious communities: Mapping and contesting spaces in religion-online. The Information Society, 25(5), 291–302. https://doi.org/10.1080/01972240903212466
Choi, E., & Shah, C. (2016). User motivations for asking questions in online Q&A services. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 67(5), 1182–1197. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23490
Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (Eds). (2005). The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed.). Sage Publications, Inc.
Echchaibi, N. (2009). Hyper-Islamism? Mediating Islam from the halal website to the Islamic talk show. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research, 1(3), 199–214. https://doi.org/10.1386/jammr.1.3.199_1
Ekmekcioglu, C., Caidi, N., Chandra, P., & Jamali, R. (2022). Altered rhythms of Ramadan: Temporalities of social media non/use during COVID-19. SocArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/enmd4
Gaston, N. M., Dorne, D., & Johnstone, D. (2015). Spirituality and everyday information behaviour in a non-Western context: Sense-making in Buddhist Laos. Information Research, 20(2). https://informationr.net/ir/20-2/paper665.html
Gorichanaz, T. (2015). Online religion? The evolving religious information landscapes of zen Buddhism and Roman Catholicism. https://oaks.kent.edu/node/311
Gregory, S. (2005). Living with chronic illness in the family setting. Sociology of Health & Illness, 27(3), 372–392. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9566.2005.00447.x
Guzik, E. (2018). Information sharing as embodied practice in a context of conversion to Islam. Library Trends, 66, 351–370. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2018.0007
Hickey, K. A. (2017). The information behavior of catholic women discerning a vocation to religious life. Journal of Religious & Theological Information, 16(1), 2–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10477845.2016.1273027
Huvila, I., & Gorichanaz, T. (2025). Trends in information behavior research, 2016–2022: An Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST) paper. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 76(1), 216–237. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24943
Iftā: Requirements and ethics. (2006). International Islamic Fiqh Academy. https://iifa-aifi.org/en/32922.html
Innocenti, P. (2024). Pilgrim’s progress? A field ethnography of multimodal recording, curating and sharing of the Camino de Santiago experience. Journal of Documentation, 80(1), 218–238. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-10-2022-0213
Irawan, I., Jayusman, J., & Hermanto, A. (2020). Fatwa contribution to the development of Islamic law (study of the fatwa institute of Saudi Arabia). FITRAH: Jurnal Kajian Ilmu-Ilmu Keislaman, 5(2), 181–206. https://doi.org/10.24952/fitrah.v5i2.1979
Michels, D. H. (2013). Seeking god’s will: The experience of information seeking by leaders of a church in transition. Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science 36(1), 16-27. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/ils.2012.0003
Mirvaxidovich, K. M. (2025). The relevance and importance of fatwas in Muslim societies. Web of Teachers: Inderscience Research, 3(2), 149–159.
Mohamed, E., & Sarwar, R. (2024). Exploring gender differences in fatwa through machine learning. Journal of Cultural Analytics, 9(3). https://doi.org/10.22148/001c.116368
Muishout, G., Topcu, N., de la Croix, A., Wiegers, G., & van Laarhoven, H. W. (2022). Turkish imams and their role in decision-making in palliative care: A Directed Content and Narrative analysis. Palliative Medicine, 36(6), 1006–1017. https://doi.org/10.1177/02692163221095200
Nangia, P., & Ruthven, I. (2023). Contemporary spiritual seeking: Understanding information interactions in contemplation and spirituality. Journal of Documentation, 79(4), 922–936. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-07-2022-0145
Nangia, P., & Ruthven, I. (2025). A review of the literature on spirituality and religion in information research – 1990 to 2022. Journal of Documentation, 81(1), 236–258. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-02-2024-0039
Nazar, Z., Ali, B., Rutter, P., & Barnes, N. (2025). Islamic reasoning and the use of prohibited medicines among Muslim patients: A qualitative study. International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy, 47(6), 2083–2093. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11096-025-02046-3
Oh, S., Zhang, Y., & Park, M. S. (2012). Health information needs on diseases: A coding schema development for analyzing health questions in social Q&A. Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 49(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1002/meet.14504901316
Ormandy, P. (2011). Defining information need in health – assimilating complex theories derived from information science. Health Expectations, 14(1), 92–104. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1369-7625.2010.00598.x
Park, C. L., Edmondson, D., & Hale-Smith, A. (2013). Why religion? Meaning as motivation. In APA handbook of psychology, religion, and spirituality (Vol. 1: Context, theory, and research) (pp. 157–171). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/14045-008
Roberts, K., Kilicoglu, H., Fiszman, M., & Demner-Fushman, D. (2014). Automatically classifying question types for consumer health questions. In AMIA Annual Symposium Proceedings. AMIA, 1018–1027.
Ruthven, I. (2019a). Making meaning: A focus for information interactions research. Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval, 163–171. https://doi.org/10.1145/3295750.3298938
Ruthven, I. (2019b). The language of information need: Differentiating conscious and formalized information needs. Information Processing & Management, 56(1), 77–90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2018.09.005
Ruthven, I. (2022). An information behavior theory of transitions. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 73(4), 579–593. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24588
Shamsy, A., & Coulson, N. J. (2025). Sharia. In Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/sharia
Siracky, H. (2013). Spiritual journal keeping: An ethnographic study of content, materials, practice, and structure [Master’s thesis, University of Toronto]. http://hdl.handle.net/1807/42933
Van Houtum, L., Rijken, M., & Groenewegen, P. (2015). Do everyday problems of people with chronic illness interfere with their disease management?. BMC Public Health, 15(1), 1000. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-2303-3
Wafa, E., Innocenti, P., & Ruthven, I. (2025). Exploring pilgrims’ information behaviour and spiritual skills development. Information Research an International Electronic Journal, 30(CoLIS), 489–497. https://doi.org/10.47989/ir30CoLIS51913
Westbrook, L., & Zhang, Y. (2015). Questioning strangers about critical medical decisions: ‘What happens if you have sex between the HPV shots?’. Information Research, 20(2), paper 667. https://informationr.net/ir/20-2/paper667.html
Wilson, P. (1983). Second-hand knowledge: An inquiry into cognitive authority. Greenwood Press.
World Health Organization. (2018). Noncommunicable diseases country profiles 2018. World Health Organization. https://iris.who.int/items/b6d5525e-caba-4a70-97c4-25f5c833a644
Xiang, M., Zhong, D., Han, M., & Lv, K. (2023). A study on online health community users’ information demands based on the BERT-LDA model. Healthcare, 11(15), 2142. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11152142
Yerbury, H., Olsson, M., & Perera, P. (2023). Capital as the outcome of information practices: A study of devotees and monks of a Theravada Buddhist temple. Journal of Documentation, 80(1), 101–115. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-01-2023-0008
Zhang, Y. (2010). Contextualizing consumer health information searching: An analysis of questions in a social Q&A community. Proceedings of the 1st ACM International Health Informatics Symposium, 210–219. https://doi.org/10.1145/1882992.188302
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Mahmoud Alblowi, Ian Ruthven, Perla Innocenti
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
