Imam Muda

Barney Henderson, Telegraph Malaysia's got talent: imams take their chants at victory, 25 June 2010 "The Young Imam competitors are becoming idols to teenage viewers. The show's Facebook page has more than 25,000 fans, including prospective mothers-in-law looking to marry off their daughters."

Useful article - headline writers on different news sources are having some fun with X-factor type banners.  

Some selected clips are here (plenty more on YouTube):







It makes for interesting viewing; the show could be a useful resource for students of Islam.

The official Facebook page is here: Facebook, Imam Muda

"'Prince of Jihad' gets 5 years"

straitstimes.com, 'Prince of Jihad' gets 5 years , 29 June 2010An Indonesian publisher and Islamist blogger known as the 'Prince of Jihad' was sentenced to five years in jail on Tuesday for abetting suicide attacks on two luxury hotels in Jakarta last year ...

" ... Mohammed Jibril Abdurahman, publisher of extremist literature and a militant blog, was arrested at his Ar-Rahmah media company weeks after the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotel bombings that killed seven people on July 17, 2009."

also see AFP/thejakartaglobe.com, ‘Prince of Jihad’ Jailed for Jakarta Hotel Bombings, 29 June 2010

Shaikh Adel Al Kalbani's 'fatwa' on music

Abdul Rahman Shaheen, , gulfnews.com, Scholars divided over imam's fatwa on music, 29 June 2010 "A fatwa (religious ruling) issued by Shaikh Adel Al Kalbani, a former imam of the Grand Mosque in Makkah, in which he claimed that Islam does not forbid singing and music has split Saudi scholars, Islamic thinkers and secularists...

" ... A number of Saudi scholars, preachers, men of letters and writers who spoke to Gulf News were divided on the fatwa. Al Kalbani was strongly criticised specially on the internet which many of them said Al Kalbani has exited the Islamic Jamaa (group)."

In a related development:

Sultan Al-Tamimi, Arab News, Makkah ex-imam’s website hacked, 25 June 2010 "A website belonging to a former imam of the Grand Mosque in Makkah was hacked last week.

"Anyone visiting Sheikh Adil Al-Kalbani’s website at the time would be greeted with a blank page with a picture at the top of the movie character The Joker, who the hacker had apparently named himself after."

Research: "Virtual Caliphate"

YAAKOV LAPPIN Yaakov Lappin, Jerusalem Post, Analysis: Cyber jihadis circumvent borders, 29 June 2010"Al-Qaida’s main point of access into Israel is via the Web, just as the Internet has opened the door to international jihadi doctrines and incitement to violence in dozens of other Western states."

Note on author: "Yaakov Lappin will publish a book called Virtual Caliphate on the use of the internet by jihadis in September, to be published by Potomac Books."  Details are here

aQ/Bangladesh

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, srilankaguardian.org, Al Qaeda eyes on Bangladesh, 29 June 2010"The next Jihadist generation's piety will equal or exceed that of bin Laden's generation. The new Jihadist, having grown up in an internet and satellite television-dominated world, will be more aware of Muslim struggles around the world, more comfortable with a common Muslim identity, more certain that the U.S.-led West is "oppressing" Muslims, and more inspired by the example bin Laden has set—bin Laden's generation had no bin Laden. While leaders more pious than Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are hard to imagine, Western analysts tend to forget that many of Bin Laden's first-generation lieutenants did not mirror his intense religiosity."

Iran 'prayer sellers'

Reuters, In Islamic Iran prayer sellers' trade is booming, 28 June 2010 "In Islamic Iran where clerics rule, unofficial "prayer sellers," who promise to intercede with the divine to solve all manner of life's problems, are seeing their business boom." Prayers can be purchased online.

SingleMuslim.com

middle-east-online.com, Piety tops marriage criteria among Muslims, 24 June 2010 "SingleMuslim.com, an interactive community of more than 500,000 members seeking potential marriage partners, polled its members to find out the most important criteria they used when searching for a partner."

See singlemuslim.com

Islamic Bank of Britain domain

birminghampost.net, Islamic Bank of Britain wins rights to website domain name, 25 June 2010 "Islamic Bank of Britain’s website has been reached at the address since 2004, but the bank did not actually own the domain name – it was registered by a New Zealand company called Ifena Consulting which had supplied information technology services to the bank.

"But Ifena recently told Islamic Bank of Britain (IBB) it wanted to auction the domain name off – a move which could have had had serious consequences for the bank’s online banking services, where it offers Shariah-compliant finance products to businesses and individuals."

Islamic Bank of Britain

Pakistan net ban (cont/d)

AFP, Pakistan to monitor websites for 'anti-Islam content', 25 June 2010 sounds like a full time job, which should provide employment for many

"Pakistan's government ordered the monitoring of websites including Google, Yahoo and YouTube for "anti-Islam content" Friday, an official said, as tensions over the Internet continued."

Humour perspective on net bans

Omar Bilal Akhtar, Tribune, I support the internet bans, 28 June 2010 "If we have started doing it now, it’s simply because of the onslaught of western liberal technology that has destroyed our morals and forced us, for the first time, to view our women as sexual objects.

"Don’t even get me started on Yahoo and Bing. They aren’t even complete words. They are just noises and exclamations. Exclamations of joy made by the Devil every time you click on them." Humour perspective.

Net 'radicalisation'

AP, 7 Israeli Arabs charged in attacks, 28 June 2010 "The Shin Bet security service says the seven underwent a process of Islamic radicalization in recent years through material published on the Internet."

Pakistan appeal ongoing

Reuters, Five Americans appeal terrorism convictions in Pakistan, 28 June 2010 "The five Americans, all students in their 20s, were sentenced Thursday for contacting militants online and plotting attacks by a court in Pakistan, fighting its own battle with Islamist radicals."

Facebook

Ankita Rao, Huffington Post, Is Facebook A Sin? Some Muslims Think So, 24 June 2010

Khaled Said

Additional materials on the Khaled Said case:

البرادعى وزوجته يزوران أسرة خالد سعيد لتقديم العزاء
,لليوم السابع [youm7.com news coverage]

شاهد: البرادعي في منزل شهيد الطوارئ
جريدة الشروق [shorouknews.com]



(tip Twitter: amansour87)

Also see Mona Eltahawy, huffingtonpost.com, Generation Mubarak/Generation Facebook, 25 June 2010 "When a young Egyptian died from what his family, activists and witnesses say was a savage police beating, many of his peers - the generation of Egyptians who have known no other leader than President Hosni Mubarak - protested and mourned in the way they know best: by going online."

Twitter: #KhaledSaid

Gowalla

I'm presently working on some new research, planning a further book and some lectures. So the occasional piece of material discovered while engaging in this occasional work in progress will surface on this blog. For example, I was just checking Gowalla, which I blogged about a few months back. There are now several mosques listed, and I'm curious to know how this will progress in other cities. Wales isn't listed, so here's an example from London:

Research on TV

Two useful new pieces of research:

Yasmin Moll, Arab Media & Society, Islamic Televangelism: Religion, Media and Visuality in Contemporary Egypt with references to Mustafa Hosni, Amr Khaled and Moez Masoud.

Secondly, Maurice Chammah, , Arab Media & Society, Cosmopolitan Islamism and its Critics: Ahmed Abu Haiba, 4Shbab TV, and Western Reception

I haven't fully read these pieces yet.

#khaledsaid

Twitter: #khaledsaid

Zeinobia, Egyptian Chronicles, Follow : A Day of Anger in Alexandria, 25 June 2010 has been extensively updated with photos and film clips.

d1g.com

David George-Cosh, The National, Jordan portal to dig into Arabic social networking, 22 June 2010 "A Jordanian web portal is planning to tap into the social networking phenomenon by giving its users the tools to create their own version of Facebook.

"The move by d1g.com is designed to boost the amount of Arabic content online. It is estimated that only 1 per cent of all online content is in Arabic, despite there being about 300 million native speakers around the world."

According to my screenshot, cats would appear to be prominent on the mind of d1g.com users today:

World cup coverage in Palestine & Gaza

AFP, Palestinian fans turn to Israeli TV for World Cup, 25 June 2010 "An official at Palestine TV, a network run by the Palestinian Authority, said he was not concerned about the reliance on Israeli TV, which he assumed would end with the tournament on July 11."

Nazril Irham charged

Karishma Vaswani, BBC News, Sex tape charges for Indonesian star Nazril Irham, 25 June 2010 "One of Indonesia's top celebrities has been charged under an anti-pornography law for his alleged role in sex videos which have appeared on the internet."