This paper gives an overview of the history and operations of IslamOnline.net, one of the most-visited Arabic/ English Islamic web portals which issue fatwas.[i] The body behind IslamOnline (IOL) is the Al-Balagh Cultural Society in Qatar, which was established in 1997 on the initiative of Qatari IT specialist Maryam Hasan al-Hajari and Dr. Hamid al-Ansari, a scholar at the Sharica Faculty of the University of Qatar. In its early stages the project was supported by the University of Qatar, especially by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the 1926-born, Azhar-educated Egyptian scholar and theorist of the Islamic Awakening movement who still chairs the Al-Balagh Society today.[ii] The headquarters and IT development of IOL are based in Doha, while most of the content is produced by more than 150 employees at the IOL offices in Cairo. IOL is mainly financed by donations and by selling its technical know-how to other Islamic institutions around the world. In promotional material for the site, Yusuf al-Qaradawi defined the site’s mission this way: "This project is neither nationalistic nor one aiming at a grouping or a group of people; it is a project for the entire Islamic community. It is the jihad of our era."[iii]
IOL’s main bilingual competitors are the Saudi-based IslamToday.net and the Qatar-based IslamWeb.net. These portals are associated with different contemporary schools of Islamic thought; IslamOnline declares its support for wasatiyya, the so-called Islamic centrism or Islamic mainstream.[iv] IslamToday.net is part of the new awakening (sahwa) in Saudi Arabia, a moderate Salafi movement (a position that leans towards wasatiyya discourse) which follows the ideas of Salman al-cAwda, who is one of the most popular independent sheikhs in Saudi Arabia. IslamWeb.net is the website of the Qatari Ministry for Religious Affairs.
In spite of their ideological differences, these sites essentially offer similar services: detailed information about Islam, the Prophet Muhammad, the two sources of Islamic law, Qur’an and Sunnah and articles on Islamic history. Some portals, for example IslamWeb.net, host databanks containing other historical texts. This sometimes involves digitizing old manuscripts, an expensive and time-consuming project that not all sites can afford.
All of these portals offer users information on religious practice and its respective contemporary interpretation. This usually occurs through legal opinions (fatawa), an established genre of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh). Users can search online databases for previously issued fatwas by subject or the name of the issuing mufti, or use an online form to request a new fatwa tailored to their personal situation. A key difference between IslamOnline and its competitors is that IslamOnline invites not only sharia experts to give advice, but also academics from fields including sociology, political science, psychology, medicine and economy, and sometimes even from literature or the arts. This is due to a belief among IOL founders that muftis cannot often give answers to questions which require special knowledge outside the framework of Islamic jurisprudence and theology.
The portal promotes the exchange of different views and debate among Muslims, but also between Muslims and non-Muslims. IslamOnline employees moderate Discussion Forums (sahat al-hiwar in the Arabic section), refreshing them daily with topical subjects. Interlinked journalistic essays on topics including Islamic normativity, family, youth, health, culture, economics or Muslims in Europe reflect the current debate over Muslim daily life in a wide spectrum reaching from the Middle East and Africa to Europe and Asia.
Beyond being a counseling service and discussion platform, IOL is also, in a way, an independent news agency, which is another aspect that distinguishes it from other Islamic portals. Each day, the IOL staff publishes a range of news stories on the site. In both the choice of the stories, which always have relevance to Islamic countries or Muslims, and the evaluation of global events, the presentation of the news on IOL differs from that of international news agencies, such as Reuters or the German DPA. IOL news could be most closely compared to that of al-Jazeera and its website, although IOL aims to present a clearly Islamic spectrum of opinions on the news.[v]
Missionaries and mission: Founding IslamOnline.net
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who moved from Egypt to Qatar in 1961 and set up the Sharica faculty at the University of Qatar and the Center for the Study of Sunnah and Sira, is correctly associated with establishing IslamOnline but mistakenly with running it. A glance into the portal's operational procedures and distribution of responsibilities reveals that his duties are largely honorary today. IOL began as a project of IT specialist Maryam al-Hajari during her final year at university. She attended a course on zakat taught by Qaradawi at the Sharica faculty in 1996. Al-Hajari says it was then she was exposed to a meaning of zakat that ran deeper than the standard notion of paying a portion of one’s income: “How you suppose to dispose your knowledge. That was a new concept to me. Before I thought zakat was only for money. So, I thought, I have got a lot of knowledge, I was a top student, so, what am I going to do with it ....I thought about it a long time.“[vi]
This new understanding pushed her off the commercial IT path and al-Hajari decided to use her computer skills for dacwa, the spreading of Islam: “Muslims all the time are thinking how to tell people about their religion. But I was thinking of other kinds of dacwa, like internal dacwa. We as Muslims, we need dacwa too.... We get lost. What is right, what is wrong. ... Even our shaykhs are separated from modern life. They wouldn’t know how to answer to special questions.“[vii] In 1996 the Internet was introduced in Qatar, leading to a proliferation of Islamic websites, many of which al-Hajari considered unappealing. Al-Hajari’s vision for her own website to counteract the inferior sites coalesced around three goals: answering questions by other Muslims, improving the image of Islam and offering a platform for discussion that would acquaint users with different perspectives and views. Armed with these ideas, Maryam al-Hajari turned to her lecturer Hamid al-Ansari for help.
After studying Islamic theology (usul al-din) in Saudi Arabia, the Qatari-born Hamid al-Ansari went to England in the early 1990s to work on his dissertation. There, he joined the country's first Muslim-Arabic students' union, the MSS (Muslim Student Society in UK and Ireland). His task in the union was to deal with the image of Islam in the British media. Experiences with the British press, who in most cases would not print any comments from a Muslim viewpoint to counterbalance Western-flavored articles on Islam, caused him to start seeking alternative ways to express his opinions publicly. He established contacts with like-minded people and became interested in the electronic networking cultures that were then developing, especially within university circles. The growth of the internet in the 1990s offered him a solution to his problem: “Finally everybody can produce content, everybody can write, without control.“[viii]
Al-Ansari and al-Hajari gained administrative approval and financial support for the project from then University of Qatar president Ibrahim al-Nucaymi. Nucaymi hired Maryam al-Hajari as a university employee and declared IslamOnline a university project. Yusuf al-Qaradawi lent his star power by personally supporting and supervising the project. ”He adopted the project. So, we used his name, because he is a respected person in Qatar and all over the Muslim world,” said al-Ansari.[ix] Al-Qaradawi promoted IslamOnline in the media, especially in his frequent appearances on the weekly al-Jazeera program Sharia and Life, which is followed by some 35 million viewers around the world. When IslamOnline was first launched, the program's subject was "Islam on the Internet," and the new site was mentioned in the broadcast.[x]
Along with the aforementioned persons in Doha, many others got involved in the early stages of the IslamOnline project. The site began to take off, particularly after 9/11 when users from all over the world overwhelmed IslamOnline with questions. Hiba Ra’uf cIzzat, an Egyptian political sciences lecturer at Cairo University, often described as an Islamic feminist, is one of those who established the IOL office in Cairo. During a discussion she said that she had devoted no less than three years of intensive work to IOL alongside with her work at the university.[xi] Combining work at IOL with study or other jobs was a common theme with employees interviewed for this paper.
The structure of the IOL web portal
The IOL web portal consists of two parts, English and Arabic, which are produced independently of each other. Each of the featured topics or sections is managed by one or several editors, whose approach and convictions shape the sections and subpages of the site. An editorial board supervises content production. The pages in Arabic and English are not congruent, which is due to the fact that they are produced for different publics or users. The pages in English mainly address Muslims in non-Muslim societies or non-Muslim users, while those in Arabic are aimed at Muslims in Muslim contexts.[xii] The site's structure changes and expands regularly, but one constant is that the Arabic and English sections are tailored to appeal to their respective audiences. The chart below, reflecting the January 2007 site design, gives an idea of the differences in presentation between the Arabic and English sections of IslamOnline:
News content is divided in two different categories, Ahamm al-akhbar/ Top News and Mukhtarat IslamOnline/ Highlights. The selection of the news items can have an idiosyncratic focus, but generally concentrates on Muslim majority countries or Muslim communities around the world. News from Palestine is heavily covered, although with more emphasis on the Arabic side. During Ramadan, the site focuses on questions and comments on ritual practice, but also on events connected with the holy month. In Ramadan of 2007, the site followed an episode in the online interactive video game Second Life in which a group of Muslim players constructed a virtual Ramadan tent that was then attacked by other users. The incident provoked animated discussions on IslamOnline about how to handle violence toward Muslims and Islamophobia.
The other subsections are structured in a similar manner, containing journalistic- and academic-style articles, discussion forums, special topics and an archive. As a treatment of all sections is beyond the scope of this article, I would like to pick out one example. During Ramadan 2007 the English-language section Art & Culture contained features ranging from an interview on the Persian poet Jalal al-Din Rumi, to an article about Ramadan observances in Sudan. It also included links to a Ramadan Poetry Competition (an invitation to participate in this competition, the winner's poem was to be read by a poet and performer, brother Dash), and a feature called “A is for Allah” featuring Yusuf Islam, known as Cat Stevens during his pop singing career. The Live Dialogues in this section dealt with two different subjects, “Poetry, A Vehicle for Peace?” with poet brother Dash as the guest, and “The Making of Hyab” with the guest being the Spanish filmmaker Xavi Sala, the director of the above film. Under Special Topics users could access three entries: Make your Ramadan Art (with instructions on how to make silhouettes), Malaysia: Progress and Diversity (an overview of Malaysia's politics, culture and economy featuring numerous articles and interviews on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the country's independence), and Muslim Cultures in Africa (a special site which tries to correct the perceived misconceptions about Islamic culture in Africa with a variety of material).
The other sections of IOL follow a similar pattern, emphasizing a diversity of experiences for Muslims around the world. All sections accompany text with multimedia: images, audio files of interviews, lectures, radio shows, and sermons, and video. Finally, IslamOnlie also provides electronic postcards or an atlas of the Islamic world or the site directory (Wasa’it mutacaddida/ Services).
In sum, IslamOnline plays two distinct roles. It is a forum for Muslims – both in Muslim-majority countries and elsewhere – to discuss news, receive advice and communicate, but it also aims to correct or complicate the often simplistic image of Islam that other media present to non-Muslims. Playing to these dual audiences is clearly marked by the adaptation of categories between the Arabic and English portions of the site. The site’s myriad categories and constantly changing features combine to illustrate IslamOnline’s core ideology emphasizing the variety of experiences of Muslims around the world. This emphasis on variety also reflects the wasatiyya doctrine espoused by Qaradawi and others following 9/11 to offer a more pluralistic and by definition non-radical school of thought.
Organizational structure
In sum, IslamOnline employees come from all over Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, though the majority is Egyptian. Their professional background is heterogeneous and can be roughly subdivided into journalism and communication studies, computer sciences, Islamic theology and jurisprudence, medicine, psychology, administration and economics, as well as social and political sciences. Hierarchies are flat, and a distinctive discussion culture is prevalent. The portal's success is predominantly based on the commitment of its workforce, all of whom feel obliged to perform dacwa, the calling of others to Islam.
Whether the development of markets with specific religious or ethic claims can be described as alternative globalization in contrast to the idea of a neoliberal globalization of profit-oriented multinational corporations is a subject under discussion in academia. Alternative globalization means that, in contrast to the anti-globalization movement, global economic networks are not called into question per se. Rather, the actors use existing experiences and structures and analogously develop markets under different, ethical conditions, such as justice, solidarity, protection of the planet etc, thus challenging neo-liberal economic practices. These alternative economic enterprises tally with the interests of some Muslim thinkers, including Qaradawi, who aspire to Islamize modernity or to encourage globalization in an Islamic setting. Fatwas play an essential part in the realization of these ideas: in 2003, for instance, a fatwa allowing the production and distribution of a beverage named Mecca Cola was issued by Qaradawi and posted on the Internet.[xx] For their part, Mecca Cola continues to feature this fatwa on their website.
In recent years IOL's know-how and expertise in website production has turned into another important source of income. IslamOnline employees in Cairo program, design and support Internet sites of other institutions, for instance the awqaf ministries of Libya and Morocco and like-minded Islamic organizations, such as the International Union of Muslim Scholars or the Kuwait-based Global Center for Wasatiyya Studies.[xxvi]
Counseling and fatwas online
a) Edited fatwas: Is’alu ahl adh-dhikr
These are edited versions of previously-issued fatwas originating from well-known muftis that IslamOnline staff members present in response to user questions.[xxxiii] Edited fatwas feature a heading, date of publication online, the name and origin of the questioner, the question itself (al-su’al), the fatwa text (al-hall), a concluding Allahu calam (God knows best),[xxxiv] and a disclaimer.[xxxv] A short text written by IslamOnline staff members introduces each fatwa and the issuing mufti or institution. Significantly, the date and place of issue and the source of publication of the original fatwa are not mentioned, nor is the question that led to its pronouncement. The texts might be mere excerpts from previously published fatwas or contain other text formats, neither of which is labeled as such. Of particular interest are edited fatwa texts assembled from several other fatwas (one might call these collage fatwas), which tend to leave the answer to the question up to the questioner (mustafti). This system gives considerable leeway to IslamOnline staff to select responses from a massive database of, sometimes contradictory, fatwas. The removal of the original question and the staff-written introduction gives further agency to IOL staff members to craft and package the site’s responses.
b) Fatwa bank: Bank al-fatawa
The fatwa bank is an online archive that users can search to find previously issued opinions. The names of the muftis are listed, and the user can choose among some 150 scholars in the Arab-language site and 170 in the English site.[xxxvi] The orientation of the archive is unmistakable. Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s fatwas have the strongest presence (672) out of approx. 6,000 fatwas on the Arabic site. The number of collage fatwas is large (810), which underlines the influence of IOL staff members on the composition of online-fatwas. Remarkably, fatwas issued by Rashid Rida rank on fifth position with 150, which is likely due to the digitization of al-Manar, a religious magazine Rida published for over 35 years. Also at the top ranks in the number of fatwas accessible by users are the Lebanese Faysal Mawlawi (248) and the Qatari scholar cAli Qurah Daghi (72), both of whom are influential members of the European Fatwa Council.
Together with the choice of muftis, the fatwa bank interface offers the user the possibility to choose from different areas of topics (other fatwa-like texts, are saved in special archives (arshif al-hiwarat)). Most fatwas can be found in conventional subject areas of the fatwa genre, e.g. in the sphere of traditional fiqh like cibadat (religious duties), mucamalat (transactions), usra (family issues) or in that of the Qur’an and Sunnah. With 2,448 fatwas, questions concerning religious duties are predominant – a trend which can also be observed in printed publications of fatwas.[xxxvii] In an exchange typical of this category, a Canadian user asks what he should do if his mobile rings during prayer. The fatwa starts with an introduction of the importance of the prayer as the second pillar of Islam and then gives advice in the name of Canadian scholar Ahmed Kutty to stop the ringing immediately. Kutty advises that the prayer would only be invalidated if the ringing repeats again and again. The fatwa closes with the hope that Muslims take the prayer seriously and with a citation identifying the fatwa as an excerpt from the Canadian Islamic website www.islam.ca.[xxxviii] Quite a number of fatwas (506) can be found in the category Jihad and International Relations (Fiqh al-jihad wa-l-calaqat ad-duwaliyya). In May 2007, a Dutch user raised the question of whether Muslims are allowed to vote in parliamentary elections in a Western country. After a lengthy discussion in which a scholar from Iraq and a scholar from Saudi Arabia are quoted, the answer (which was already prepared in 2004) by an anonymous group of muftis (majmuc min al-muftiyin) is that every Muslim should take part in elections in the country in which he is entitled to vote and should support moderate movements (al-tayyarat al-muctadila) in order to combat negative preconceptions of Muslims.[xxxix] Both of these examples illustrate IslamOnline’s efforts to make Muslims live easily, in accordance with one of Qaradawi’s main principles besides wasatiyya and ictidal (moderation), namely taysir (ease).
c) Live Fatwas: Fatawa mubashira
d) People’s say on fatwas: Fatawa an-nas
The Fatawa an-nas category corresponds with IslamOnline’s fundamental aspiration, to stimulate thought and discussion by supplying information. But another crucial function of this section is to present information contextualizing fatwas publicized in the mainstream media, information which these fatwas themselves do not provide but without which the fatwas remain almost incomprehensible. This category furthermore represents an effort to cogitate over fatwas and ifta’ with the tools of journalism as opposed to those of fiqh. An important trend arises from this: media-issued fatwas or texts related to fatwas predominantly have neither a direct association to nor do they serve an immediate function for Islamic jurisprudence. On the contrary, they are associated with an imagined public, the "people" (an-nas) out there. For IslamOnline, media reportage of fatwas, viewed through the journalistic lens of generalization, summary and simplification, and pressures to be topical and competitive, threaten not only the content and complexity of fiqh, but also its inherent logic and structure. The issue of amalgamating fiqh and journalism, or fiqh and the commitment for Islam in the media, has recently been under intensive discussion among scholars and intellectuals; articles are published in daily and weekly newspapers (Al-Hayat, Asharq alawsat, Al-Ahram Weekly) as well as in periodicals (al-Manar al-Jadid, al-Mujtama’) and online portals (www.islamismscope.com, www.islamonline.net, www.almultaka.net).[xliv]
e) Dossiers: Malaffat khassa
The statements in this feature topic represent the fatwa genre and clearly serve to establish a link between the published texts and the handed-down Islamic jurisprudence. At the same time the texts possess their own news value, and fatwas with a news value or media fatwas can be used again for multiple purposes on the global media market. At any rate they are a tool towards the legitimization of certain views as being “Islamic.” However, these texts are only remotely connected to fatwas as established institutions of fiqh. The Qaradawi name in such cases is more a reference to a popular brand of a global Islamic project and only secondarily, if at all, to a mufti issuing a legal opinion according to predetermined criteria.
Conclusion
IslamOnline.net promotes an Islamic view of the world. This view is shaped by Egyptian and Qatari national influence, as well as by the Arab-language and Sunni production backgrounds. The propinquity of the portal with the tenets of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, which are associated with the term wasatiyya by both Qaradawi himself and others, as well as with his like-minded colleagues and the institutions they belong to is evident in the portal's fatwa service, whose approach is moralist-conservative and missionary, though not dogmatic.[lii] In addition, IslamOnline seeks debate with other schools of thought and world views. The IOL portal does not represent or advocate a certain political movement, party or government; rather, it offers the space for the evolution of a discussion culture among heterogeneous Muslim voices (from the conservative to the progressive, from the pro-government to the outlawed, from the highly political to the apolitical), a fact reflected on its numerous subpages and special topics. At IslamOnline, the signs point to an earnest and creative way of handling the discursive tradition of Islam and to an effort to make the plurality of Muslim views in concrete local contexts – be they academic, cultural, political or religious in nature – accessible on a global scale.
Bettina Gräf has worked for the last five years as academic assistant to the director at the Centre for Modern Oriental Studies in Berlin. She is currently finishing her PhD at the Free University Berlin on the production and adoption of fatawa in the era of electronic media with reference to the works of Yusuf al-Qaradawi.