Exploring The Impact of Social Dating Applications on Relationships During the Covid-19 Pandemic Among Young Adults
2.1 Analysis of Dating Applications: Previous Study
2.1.3 Social Dating Application Baituljannah
44 Baituljannah is a Sharia-compliant dating app with strict security and safety features to ensure that the site is free of unwanted interactions such as catfishing and frauds when individuals socialise digitally (The Star, 2021). Since its inception in 2017, the app has resulted in over 10,000 weddings among its users in Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore intending to reach one million users by the end of 2021 (Forbes, 2021). The inventors and producers of Baituljannah dating app describe the functionality, features, and settings of the Muslim-friendly dating app in this article.
Baituljannah was created to connect Muslim singles based on their interests and pre-determined criteria while remaining true to Islamic courting and marital customs (Zaidon et al., 2021).
Baituljannah's concept is that couples will communicate in pairs and be supervised by a 'third party' from Baituljannah to avoid any interference and comply with Islamic regulations (Kamaruddin, 2019). All actions in this digital Muslim matchmaking platform are maintained and overseen by 12 staff 24 hours a day, therefore all discussions conducted through their system and will be monitored and screened for customer comfort. Users who want to use this application can get packages for as little as RM70, with a portion of each transaction going to the Infaq fund through recognised charities. This application can be accessed and used for free by individuals who are less competent, however access is limited (Arshad, 2019).
Users of Baituljannah must be at least 18 years old in order to register (Malaysiakini, 2021).
The Baituljannah team thoroughly screens each applicant to guarantee that only serious candidates are accepted. Interactions on the platform are monitored, identical to how specific Muslims' face- to-face meetings are supervised. Users cannot exchange personal information unless they have
45 communicated enough to fill up a Taaruf Metre. This opens up a form called "Borang Taaruf Luar"
(Taaruf Meeting Agreement) which can be filled out if one of the parties wants to extend their contact beyond the platform. The Taaruf Metre helps to guarantee that both parties are comfortable and have an idea of how compatible they are before proceeding to connect outside the platform because the platform can no longer help to control their engagement once they continue their conversations externally (Teoh, 2021).
A Baituljannah user had written a review on the dating app, in which he detailed the limits of using the free account rather than the premium subscription. According to Ley (2019), users can view the listed possible matches even if they have not filled out all of their information, but the catch is that they cannot send "Hi" (similar to Facebook's poke option) or messages to them. Only when all of their information is filled out during registration can users send "Hi" to the possible matches, but it is limited to only 50 people per day (Begum, 2021).
In addition, he claimed in his review that with the free account, users are only able to send three messages to the listed matches, and that if they wish to send more messages, they must purchase "rubies," or credits (Zaini, 2019). In Baituljannah, there are no monthly subscriptions for premium accounts; instead, the monthly fee is for rubies (credits). The packages starts from RM45 for 5 rubies, RM70 for 10 rubies and RM150 for 30 rubies (Baituljannah, 2021). According to Ley (2019), the optimal package would be RM70 for 10 rubies. It is suggested by the founder of Baituljannah that the RM70 package for 10 rubies would be the best choice to purchase in the Baituljannah dating application (Arshad, 2019).
46 Another positive review can be seen in an article from The Star, a medical doctor by trade uses the Baituljannah dating app, saying that the app is more than just a socially-distanced way of finding a match during the pandemic, its Muslim-friendly matchmaking platform aims to help people meet others in a Halal (permissible under Islamic law), safe, and convenient way (Amin, 2021). To summarise, the Baituljannah dating application is more targeted toward Muslims, as the laws and regulations in place are aimed at helping Muslims in forming long-term relationships, as evidenced by the favourable response received from Baituljannah.
Considering Baituljannah is still a relatively new dating app, there is not that much research available. Other dating sites, such as Baitulmuslim.com, tiljannah.my, temanhidupku.com, and MyJodoh.net, are comparable to Baituljannah (Muhaf, 2019). The similarities of these websites is to engage Muslims to seek a potential partner online, which is what these websites have in common with Baituljannah. For example, MyJodoh.net was the first Malaysian online dating website created back in 2002 and was founded by Azrul Alwi. The majority of MyJodoh.net users are Malay -speaking archipelago users from Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Indonesia and 96% of MyJodoh.net users are from the group who have worked and have a source of income (Alwi, 2002).
Most of them have had everything in life, except a partner.
According to Kho (2020), MyJodoh.net has been in the game for a long time and statistics has shown that the number of users has increased in between the months of April and May of 2020 which was the time where the first Covid-19 pandemic had occurred. It has also been recorded that 95,734 out of 120,000 users from the website have never been married while the rest are divorced.
47 Batituljannah and MyJodoh.net are similar in that the age of registration for the website must be at least 18 years old (The Star, 2021). In comparison to Baituljannah and other Muslim dating websites, it can be stated that online dating in the Muslim community is not prevalent and has been practised since 2002.