Dawkak tool

Mohamed Marwen Meddah, startuparabia.com, Dakwak: A Tool For Website Localization Into 60+ Languages, 29 Jul 2010 "Dakwak is a new startup that was recently launched from Jordan that aims to provide a solution for website localization into 60+ languages."

Cool tool, nice name and logo too!

Indonesia Qur'an translation

AKI/Jakarta Post, Indonesia: Koran translation released for 'reduced radicalism', 29 Jul 2010 - "Indonesia's Religious Affairs Ministry has released a new translation of the Koran in an effort to reduce Islamic radicalism. However, the ministry refused to consider the new translation as state product."

Not sure if this new translation will be going online.

Revolutionmuslim.com

CNN, Judge won't release Virginia man accused of trying to join militants, 26 Jul 2010 "Chesser is accused of posting an online attack against the creators of the animated TV series "South Park," as well as information on explosives meant to be used to kill civilians."

Rap in Gaza

Associated Press, Wary of Islamic Hamas rulers, rappers keep quiet profile in the Gaza Strip, 29 Jul 2010 "Hamas police broke up a show in March that contained a rap act. Police said the event lacked permits, but the rappers took it as a cue to keep their heads down. While underground, the rappers distribute songs on the Internet and perform at events organized by international organizations, which they say keeps authorities at bay."

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Ayman al-Zawahiri

Reuters, Qaeda's Zawahri condemns France, Yemen clerics: Web, 27 Jul 2010 "Al Qaeda's No. 2 leader condemned a French move to ban Islamic face veils and urged Yemeni clerics to call for jihad against an alleged U.S. intervention in Yemen, in an Internet message posted on Tuesday."

Review: iMuslims

Gabriel Weimann, University of Haifa, Book review: iMuslims: Rewiring the House of Islam, Sociology of Religion, published online on June 17, 2010

"iMuslims, especially combined with Bunt’s previous books, is a detailed, rich, and informative encyclopedia of Islam online. It is based on descriptive analysis and relies on a thorough examination of the contents and formats of online Islam. His study is laudable for breaking ground in an area that is inherently difficult to research due to its scope, complexity, vagueness, and expansiveness."

There are some useful comments in this review as to other directions this research could take, some of which I coincidentally happen to be looking at in preparation for planning my next volume.

"European Courts’ Authority Contested? The Case of Marriage and Divorce Fatwas On-line"

Vit Sisler participated in and helped organise the WOCMES panel I chaired last week. He has advised me of the following article, which I don't think I have linked to before:

Digital Islam, Vit Sisler, European Courts’ Authority Contested? The Case of Marriage and Divorce Fatwas On-line, Masaryk University Journal of Law and Technology , Vol. 3, No. 1, 2009, pp. 51-78. "This article explores Islamic websites providing normative content for European Muslim minorities. It focuses on four distinct Sunni websites and analyzes their fatwas, i.e. legal and religious recommendations issued in matters related to family law. Drawing from a broader research of more than 450 fatwas, this article presents the various ways, in which Muslim authorities associated with these sites deal with the conflicting areas between Islamic law and European legal systems."

I haven't read this one yet.

Halal-Internet:

Anuradha Shukla, TMCnet, Halal-Internet: A new Internet Protection Software, 26 Jul 2010 "To increase visibility of Islam in society, Halal-internet launched a new software program today designed with Muslims in mind. HalalGate, the first Internet filter with parental control features, is exclusively designed for Muslim parents, educators, and business owners to surf the internet freely without running into inappropriate web content that conflicts with essential Islamic beliefs and values.

"This powerful tool is created by Muslims and inspired by the growing need among the Islamic community to minimize degrading cultural variables. It is simple to install and easy to use. HalalGate empowers websurfers by blocking dating sites and webpages featuring gambling, alcohol, and drug usage. It allows the users to block the websites related to terrorism, violence, pornography, or exhibiting any extremist behavior."

For more information, take a look at the Halal-Internet site, which is where the image on the left is taken from. The image below (also from the site) gives an indication of what the interface looks like:

A Premium edition of this product is also planned. According to the product description:

"We eliminate all and every objectionable web sites from our database websites that can content or promote what can be considered as un-Islamic like Pornography, dating, Adult Image, Alcohol, Gambling, Criminal Skills, Alternative Lifestyles, Hate Speech, Match Making, Extreme, Profanity, Substance Abuse, Weapon, mind toxic sites like Myspace, certain Web-blog that promote un-Islamic unlawful criminal un-ethical and immoral behavior. Occult sites , and much much more.
we quarantine any website that promote Al-fuhsha, or Al-munkar, and any fake Islamic site that we come across. websites that are designed by Anonymous non Muslim to spread misinformation and confusion about the true teaching if the Islam." [sic]

Quite how these parameters are decided is unclear. There might be scope for extending this product outside of a Muslim market. I'd like to find out more, and maybe do a product test sometime.

Saudi Arabia

Benjamin Joffe-Walt, Jerusalem Post, Saudi technology guards against women escaping, 25 Jul 2010 "When women’s rights activist Wajiha Al-Huwaidar flew out of Saudi Arabia last week for a holiday in Italy with her family, she was hoping for a brief respite from what she describes as the ‘gender apartheid kingdom.’

"She wasn’t so lucky.

"As she left, her husband received an automated SMS text message from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informing him that his wife, legally considered his ‘dependant’ under Saudi Arabia’s strict gendered guardianship system, had left the country."

Football shirts

AP/Star Online, Perak Mufti: No plans to ban Man Utd jerseys, 23 Jul 2010 "There are no plans to issue an edict banning Manchester United jerseys in Malaysia despite recent tabloid reports that Muslims have been urged not to wear the Premier League club’s shirts because the emblem features a devil." This subject has been prevalent on social networking sites in Malaysia.

Saudi Arabia

Habib Trabelsi, Middle East Online, Saudi seeks to purge textbooks from ‘hatred’: Ministry of Education introduces amendments in religious programs taught in Saudi schools, 26 Jul 2010 Interesting article, which includes this element relating to the visit of Noura Al-Fayez, Vice-Minister of Education for girl affairs, to King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in 2009: "Sheikh Sulaiman al-Douish, a tenor of Salafism, scolded Fayez for having visited a "male school and sat between men."

""This is a stupid and clumsy act," railed Sheikh Douish, who regards gender mixing absolute evil and sedition, in a long article published on the internet."

Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba

Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times, Pakistani students prefer guns to books, 27 Jul 2010 "Contacts in North Waziristan confirm that the large-scale movement of IJT [Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba] members took place earlier this year. The organization responded by expelled all of them. However, these students maintain a very active presence on the Internet, and blogging is their main tool for recruitment."

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani

Azar Nafisi, huffingtonpost.com, Sakineh and Neda, 25 Jul 2010a "Last summer the image of a 23-year-old Iranian girl, named Neda, dominated the media and internet as the world witnessed on the television and internet screens her being shot and killed while participating in a protest against Iran's rigged presidential elections. Over a year later, as we celebrated Neda's life and mourned her death, another very different image caught the world's attention: that of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two."

AQIM

AFP, French hostage may have died before raid: PM, 27 Jul 2010 "Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said Sunday it had killed Michel Germaneau, 78, in revenge after French and Mauritanian soldiers killed six of its militants in a raid on one of their camps in Mali last week.

"Some French officials suggested privately then that the aid worker's captors may had already killed him weeks before the raid, and on Tuesday Prime Minister Francois Fillon became the first to do so in public."

Also see Le Monde, 'Al-Qaida au Maghreb islamique s'est concentrée par défaut sur le Sahara', 23 Jul 2010 "Jean-Pierre Filiu, professeur au Centre d'études et de recherches internationales (CERI) de Sciences-Po et auteur de l'ouvrage Les Neuf Vies d'Al-Qaida (Fayard, 2009), décrypte le rôle joué par Al-Qaida au Maghreb islamique, organisation à l'origine de l'enlèvement du Français Michel Germaneau."

'The Afghanistan War Logs'

Guardian, Afghanistan: The War Logs "This series of reports on the war in Afghanistan is based on the US military's internal logs of the conflict between January 2004 and December 2009. Read more about the logs and how the Guardian investigated them."

Also see Wikileaks, Der Spiegel, and NYT.

Having just got back from my trip to WOCMES, I haven't had a chance yet to look at these documents in relation to the content of this blog and my general research.

Viral video issue

Daily Star, 'Burka Babe Fury', 27 Jul 2010 "Islamic groups have demanded that a viral version of the ad should be removed from the internet where it has already had millions of viewers."

Revolutionmuslim.com

cnn, Man accused of trying to join Islamist militants appears in court, 22 Jul 2010

"In April, Chesser [Zachary Adam Chesser], who also goes by the name Abu Talhah al Amrikee, authored a post on the radical Islamic website Revolutionmuslim.com that included a warning to the creators of the TV cartoon series "South Park" after an episode included an image of the Prophet Mohammed in a bear suit.

"The posting on Revolutionmuslim.com says: "We have to warn Matt (Stone) and Trey (Parker) that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.""

Papal visit

catholicherald.co.uk, Police monitor internet for threats against the Pope during his visit, 21 Jul 2010 "Questions about the Pope’s safety arose last week after a post on the Leicester-based website suggested that Muslims in Birmingham use the opportunity of the papal Mass to protest against the Pope."

Apps

Mary Flynn, abcnews, God? There's an App for That: Apps Are Making It Easier to Access Religious Texts, Prayers and Practices From Anywhere, 22 Jul 2010 following on from my presentation on this issue here at WOCMES, here's a related article. "Most Muslims are raised with family members to guide them through the customs, traditions or even how to pray, she said. She has had to make her own way with the help of Internet research (Islamicfinder.com), and she relies heavily on her iPhone apps for reference. Among her collection of apps is an Islamic dictionary, a digital copy of the Quran and another that helps her learn Arabic."

My article on apps should be out online in a couple of weeks.

Hajj registration online in Qatar issues

Gulf News/zawya.com, Decision to free up Haj registrations in Qatar evokes mixed response, 22 Jul 2010 "According to one Haj operator, the government’s move to centralise the registration system and make it online is imprudent since some applicants could get away with providing false personal information.

"“Another issue is that most of the people going for Haj are old and not familiar with the internet, so they would find it hard to register online,” he said, according to the daily."