Careers in Islamic tech: apps and platforms

Prayer-time and qibla apps, Qur'an readers with recitation and translation, Arabic learning platforms, halal restaurant directories, modest fashion marketplaces, zakat calculators, Sharia-compliant financing services: a genuine technology sector has grown up around the needs of Muslims. It recruits developers, designers, product managers and data specialists.

For a digital professional, it is a chance to put their skills at the service of a community while doing a mainstream job in the industry. This page describes the products, jobs and skills involved, as well as the points to watch in this niche.

Main types of product

• Religious practice: prayer times, qibla, reminders, Qur'an reading and memorisation, supplications, Hijri calendar.
• Education: courses in Arabic, tajwid and Islamic sciences, platforms that connect learners with teachers.
• Commerce: marketplaces for halal products, modest fashion and certified cosmetics, halal meat delivery.
• Services: directories of restaurants and prayer spaces, pilgrimage travel booking, donation and zakat platforms.
• Finance: Sharia-compliant savings, investment and payments, covered on the page about careers in Islamic fintech.

Jobs in demand

Development

Mobile developers (iOS, Android or cross-platform), front-end and back-end developers and DevOps engineers are at the heart of the teams. A prayer app must work offline and handle geolocation, time zones and notifications with great reliability.

Product and design

Product managers and UX/UI designers create user journeys suited to very different users: children, older people, new Muslims, Arabic speakers and non-Arabic speakers. Handling right-to-left script, displaying Qur'anic text correctly with its reading marks and choosing Arabic fonts are specific, much-appreciated skills.

Data and content

Data analysts, app store optimisation specialists, and writers and translators of religious content work on the quality and visibility of the product. Religious content is often reviewed by a panel of scholars or specialists.

Business and support

Partnership managers, community managers and customer support teams complete the line-up, especially for marketplaces.

Skills and technical challenges specific to the sector

Beyond standard digital skills, several issues are specific to these platforms:

• calculating prayer times, which depends on different conventions according to schools and organisations (dawn and night angles, the method for calculating asr, high latitudes in summer); a good product lets users choose and explains its settings;
• textual reliability: a wrongly transcribed verse or hadith is a serious error, hence the importance of verified textual sources;
• handling personal data: in Europe, the GDPR (and the UK GDPR in the United Kingdom) classes data revealing religious beliefs as special category data, subject to stricter rules;
• verifying merchants and halal certificates on a marketplace, in connection with halal certification and auditing.

Permissibility questions in the business model

Development work in itself poses no difficulty. The questions concern the business model and funding instead:

• advertising shown in a religious app, which can promote forbidden products if it is not filtered;
• paid game mechanics close to chance, such as certain random rewards;
• financing the start-up with interest-bearing loans or through investors whose main business is unlawful;
• selling or exploiting users' data.

Contemporary scholars hold varied positions on some of these points, particularly funding. It is advisable to consult a qualified scholar or an Islamic compliance adviser. The page on IT work and unlawful activities also addresses the case of a developer employed by a company some of whose activities are problematic.

Employers and forms of employment

Employers range from small start-ups with two or three founders to app publishers with a large international audience, as well as web agencies that build tools for mosques, schools and certifiers. Many teams work remotely, spread across Europe, North Africa, Turkey, the Gulf and South-East Asia, and use English as their working language. Freelancing is common for design, one-off development and translation.

Example: the life cycle of a prayer app

A small team launches a prayer-time app. The product manager interviews users to understand what they expect: discreet notifications at work, a choice of calculation method, display in several languages. The designer creates readable screens, including in dark mode and for visually impaired users. The developers build in geolocation, an offline mode and automated tests around clock changes. Before launch, a specialist checks the times for several cities against local mosque timetables. After release, the team follows user reviews, fixes bugs and decides on its business model: paid app, subscription, donations or filtered advertising.

Tips for getting started

• contribute to an existing project or publish a small personal tool to show your skills;
• polish your professional English, often essential in these teams;
• learn the basics of accessibility and internationalisation;
• check a start-up's business model and funding before joining;
• consider setting up your own business, with help from the resources on Islamic entrepreneurship and start-ups.