The United States of America presents a classical contemporary paradox, if such a thing were to exist. As the "Great Satan" of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, it is the Muslim world's most hated country; yet it provides more freedom for the expression of Islam than any Muslim country. This freedom is provided through the platform of the Internet. In the first instance, of the 13 domain name root servers on the planet, through which every internet traffic passes through, 10 are located in the United States, one each in Japan, England, and Sweden. The root servers are maintained predominantly under the auspices of the U.S. government.
Further, let us not forget, the internet itself is an American concept, created to sustain the American mindset - freedom of expression, and sharing of information, among others. This can only happen in an open society. In the Middle East and North Africa - seen as Islam's cradle, "Governments have adopted various means to restrict the flow of information online. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates impose censorship via proxy servers, devices that are interposed between the end-user and the Internet in order to filter and block specified content. In many countries, including Jordan, taxation and telecommunications policies keep Internet accounts quite costly and thus beyond the means of many - whether or not this is the objective of these policies. Tunisia has enacted the region's most detailed Internet-specific legislation, which is in large part designed to ensure that online speech does not escape the government's tough controls on critical speech in other media. In the majority of countries where Internet-specific laws have not been enacted, legal or de facto constraints on freedom of speech and of the press have a chilling effect on what is expressed online, especially in public forums like open bulletin boards and "chat-rooms" (online discussions where participants communicate in real time" (http://www.hrw.org/advocacy/internet/mena/summary.htm)
And whereas countries like Saudi Arabia are busy blocking internet access, including to Muslim sites considered "dissident", thanks to the First Amendment of the American constitution which guarantees freedom of expression, these same dissidents can voice out their malcontents from American Internet Service Providers, unblocked, and unprosecuted. The "Islamization" of the United States, particularly through the use of internet by the thousands of Muslim groups, has created an alarm among mainstream pure blond Americans. According to a report, " Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in the United States. Partly through conversion but mainly through immigration, the number of Muslims has now risen to three or four million. At current rates of increase, there will be more Muslims than Presbyterians within the decade. Early in the next century their numbers may well grow past six million, at which point there will be more American Muslims than Jews.
"Islam is not a religion that attracts whites. Although there may be as many as 1,500,000 native-born Americans who have converted to Islam they are, almost without exception, black. Heretofore, black Muslims and immigrant Muslims have had little to do with each other, but they are beginning to build alliances. Militant blacks and Middle-Eastern fundamentalists are discovering common ground, bound together in a religion that, in its extreme forms, strives to dominate all aspects of society. For America's first 153 years, there was not a single mosque on United States territory. The first was built in Ross, North Dakota, of all places, in 1929, to serve Lebanese and Syrian peddlers who had settled there. There are now more than 1,100 mosques in the United States - with at least one in nearly every state – and 80 percent were founded in the last 12 years.." (William Robertson Boggs, The Rise of Islam in America: Islam lies at a dangerous intersection between race and immigration, The American Renaissance, Vol 4, No 11, November 1993 (http://www.commonsenseclub.com/islam.html).
It seems freedom has its limits after all! Further American unease with Muslim presence is carefully documented in War on Islam, a 244-page book available free of charge in Adobe Reader format at http://www.twf.org/Library/woi2edL.pdf. It provides a scholastic view of how the current Western world perceives and attempts to deal with the issue of the rapid growth of Islam, especially in North America.
While quite a lot of the Islamic websites are created and maintained by Muslims, it is significant to note that most of the webmasters were either Arab-Americans, other Muslims (e.g. Asian-Americans) or American Muslims who seize the opportunity of their skills and promote Islam in a way more effective than in any Muslim country. Thus there are numerous Islamic 'portals', presenting a selection of web sites based on their specific perspectives of Islam. The reader can suffer 'information overload' when visiting an extensive portal such as http://www.islam.org. It helps if you know exactly what information you are seeking about Islam on the Internet, in which case a dedicated Islamic search-engine such as http://www.musalman.com can be very helpful.
Information Overload and Portals of Knowledge
The Internet is the new mass media, with influences far more pervasive than any mass medium in the history of human expression. As with any mass media, it is both a double-edged sword, and an ideological weapon. Islam, already trampled and mauled by a coalition of Christian, western-controlled conventional media, stands to be further pushed to the ground in the new game. However, this was not to be.
The presence of Islam on the internet is truly impressive, and reflects one area where Muslims are keen to adopt a new technology in order to spread the message of their religion. To this end, one of the biggest compilations of Islamic websites is given at http://maranao.com/islamic_links.htm#18, which is a Filipino-maintained website. It provides an impressive alphabetical listing of the major Islamic sites, clicking on which will take you to the individual home page.
Similar lists were given by the "Mama List" (sic) of Islamic sites at http://www.jannah.org/mamalist, which lists 1,940 Islamic web-links. Perhaps it should be pointed out that on each web page are likely to be series of other web links exploring various aspects of Islam. The tedium of scouring through the net and testing credible links has been done by the mamalist webmaster, as stated in his introduction: "Over the course of 7 years and developing this website I have some observations for Muslims and those seeking information about Islam: First, BE CAREFUL about what you read. I've been through hundreds of sites and it is amazing that some will say "TRUE ISLAM" or even have nice Islamic titles, and they turn out to be wack information pages [many written by people against Islam]. You want to read "the other side", you say. Why read a page on Islam by a non-Muslim? Most contain inaccuracies, misconceptions and strategically present Islam in a bad light on purpose without giving the complete explanation and understanding of issues. Learn about Islam with an open mind from the sources of Quran and Sunnah and practicing Muslims and decide FOR YOURSELF what you think about it. The nature of the internet is such that anyone can publicly advance their views freely [a good thing] and claim to be anything, but make sure what you are reading is from authentic Muslim sources. The internet should only be used as a resource and anything suspect should be checked out and explored; better sources being your local Imam, knowledgeable Muslims, Mosque, Islamic center or Muslim Students Association."
This perhaps reflects the most sober statement in the use of Internet to understand Islam. It is often too easy to get carried away with the arrogance of cyberage, as most net whizs and computer nerds are wont to be. In the final analysis, the "mallam" sitting on his threadbare "buzu" surrounded by dusty dog-eared reference books is likely to be more credible than a massive website of inaccurate and distorted information.
The Mamalist is broadly categorized into 12 sections, with Educational links (http://www.jannah.org/mamalist/Educational/) having the largest share of 43 sites. For those who want to brighten up their desktops with free screensavers and wallpapers, the graphics category (http://www.jannah.org/mamalist/Graphics-Software-Audio/) is just the port of call, with 113 sites offering all manner of things free of charge.