Identity Misuse in Online Lending: Contract Validity under Fiqh Muʿamalah and Criminal Liability under Islamic and Indonesian Criminal Law

Abstract

The rapid growth of online lending in Indonesia has been accompanied by a rise in identity misuse, in which offenders apply for loans using identity documents and personal data belonging to others or fabricated for the purpose. Such conduct harms three parties at once: the lender, who disburses funds to an unidentified person; the individual whose identity is used, who may be pursued for debts they never incurred and recorded as a defaulter; and the public, whose trust in digital finance is eroded. This article examines identity misuse in online lending from two perspectives: the validity of the resulting contract under fiqh muʿāmalah and the criminal liability of the offender under Islamic criminal law (fiqh jināyah), in dialogue with Indonesian positive law. Using a qualitative normative method based on classical and contemporary fiqh literature, the Qur'an and hadith, Indonesian legislation including the Criminal Code, the Electronic Information and Transactions Law, and the Personal Data Protection Law, and the literature on identity crime, the study finds that a loan contract concluded through a false or stolen identity is defective because it violates the requirements of identifiable contracting parties and genuine consent, and contains tadlīs and gharar. The person whose identity was used is not a party to the contract and bears no obligation, consistent with the Qur'anic principle that no bearer of burdens bears the burden of another. Under Islamic criminal law, identity misuse constitutes a taʿzīr offence combining forgery (tazwīr), deception, and unlawful appropriation of property, for which the authority may impose proportionate penalties aimed at deterrence, correction, and protection of society. Indonesian law converges with this assessment through forgery, fraud, electronic manipulation, and personal-data offences. The article proposes an integrated framework comprising prevention through verification, protection of identity victims, and proportionate punishment, grounded in the objectives of the sharia.