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Cited by 1Misinformation and Its ImpactsIslamic Finance and CommunicationSpam and Phishing Detection

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Fabricating Holiness: Characterizing Religious Misinformation Circulators on Arabic Social Media

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Fawzi, Mahmoud, Ross, Björn, Magdy, Walid·2026·Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media
DOI 10.1609/icwsm.v20i1.42665
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Abstract

Misinformation is a growing concern in a decade involving critical global events. While social media regulation is mainly dedicated towards the detection and prevention of fake news and political misinformation, there is limited research about religious misinformation which has only been addressed through qualitative approaches. In this work, we study the spread of fabricated quotes (Hadith) that are claimed to belong to Prophet Muhammad (the prophet of Islam) as a case study demonstrating one of the most common religious misinformation forms on Arabic social media. We attempt through quantitative methods to understand the characteristics of social media users who interact with fabricated Hadith. We spotted users who frequently circulate fabricated Hadith and others who frequently debunk it to understand the main differences between the two groups. We used Logistic Regression to automatically predict their behaviors and analyzed its weights to gain insights about the characteristics and interests of each group. We find that both fabricated Hadith circulators and debunkers have generally a lot of ties to religious accounts. However, circulators are identified by many accounts that follow the Shia branch of Islam, Sunni Islamic public figures from the gulf countries, and many Sunni non-professional pages posting Islamic content. On the other hand, debunkers are identified by following academic Islamic scholars from multiple countries and by having more intellectual non-religious interests like charity, politics, and activism.

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  • The gap in comprehensive Islamic knowledge evaluation can lead to religious misinformation affecting daily practice for Muslims who may lack easy access to qualified scholars.

    “This gap can lead to religious misinformation affecting daily practice for Muslims who may lack easy access to qualified scholars (Naous et al., 2024; Fawzi et al., 2026).”

    From IslamicMMLU: A Benchmark for Evaluating LLMs on Islamic Knowledge (2026) · cites this paper as Fawzi et al., 2026

    The Abstract (p. 1) describes fabricated Hadith circulating on Arabic social media as religious misinformation. But the paper does not establish that a gap in comprehensive Islamic knowledge evaluation causes that misinformation or that it affects Muslims’ daily practice. The Implications (p. 9) discuss difficulty accessing Shia scholars for researchers, not lack of access to qualified scholars for Muslims generally. (LLM, conf=0.85)

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Metadata

Authors
Fawzi, M., Ross, B., & Magdy, W.
Affiliations
University of Edinburgh (GB)
ORCID
Venue
Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media
Publisher
Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
Published
2026-05-25
Volume
20
Issue
1
Pages
760-775
ISSN
  • 2162-3449 (ISSN-L)
  • 2334-0770
DOI
10.1609/icwsm.v20i1.42665
OpenAlex
W4416242915
Cited by
0
References
0
FWCI
0.00
Type
conference paper
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • AAAI Publications (The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)) (submittedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Islamic Finance and Communication
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Spam and Phishing Detection
Keywords
religious misinformation, fabricated hadith, Arabic social media, user behavior prediction, Shia Islam, Islamic scholars, fake news

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