Social Media & Religiosity

Every now and then one receives on one’s mobile phone some religious material to be circulated further in thousands and millions and warning those not doing so of dire consequences. Someone simply starts with, “We want to present the Holy Prophet SAW with a gift of 5 Crore Darood and you should share it further immediately”.  And the chain takes off instantaneously. Some other send pictures of holy places like the house of Hazrat Ibrahim A.S., Fatima tuz Zahra, or of a handwritten copy of Qura’n by Hazrat Usman e Ghani, or some other similar item(s) of great religious importance, again with the “advice” to share these immediately further.  Some of these carry inscriptions printed in Urdu or Arabic explaining the religious material but the Instructions to share it further are also strangely in English at times, which clearly shows them to be a handy work of an expert of a marketing strategy undertaken by a big commercial concern.!

Could someone more knowledgeable, therefore, educate us:

(1) As to what is the Islamic status of such posts on the social media and what does Shariah says about it?

(2)   Would such “Cut and Paste” activity where one could send hundreds of  messages just by the click of a button fetch the requisite “Swaab” or  accrue the “Azaab” for not sharing it further?

(2) Are we not being exploited by the crafty marketing companies of Social Media Networks, who play upon our religious sentiments and makes us  generate millions and billions of SMSs which fetch them huge revenues in return?

Col.Riaz Jafri (Retd)