Making Muslim Rahmatan Lil ‘Alamin via Android: Study on UMMA Mobile App

Abstract

. The UMMA mobile application was launched in April 2019 and by March 2020 around 5 million Android users had been downloaded. The Start-up targets digital Muslim communities in making Muslims mercy for the whole world or rahmatan lil ‘alamin, and connected with YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The feature ‘Community’ in UMMA is projected to encourage communication between users to discuss online and offline on social-religious issues and forming Islamic communities. This paper aims to describe the history and development of UMMA as the digital religion practiced in Indonesia; the features in UMMA, and the responses of the users of this mobile app to its content and facilities. The research method in two-step qualitative: first, downloading the application, and observing features, content, user responses on the play store and inside the application; Second, analyze the datas by relevant conceptual and popular references. The study found that the UMMA as a start-up digital Islamic application since 2018 experienced a rapid development with strong financier and it has 21 applicative features, reinforced by artificial intelligence technology, and received positive response from its users. UMMA has become part of the Indonesian digital Muslim lifestyle and will be an mobile application that will continue to grow in the Indonesian application market.