Type of site | Informative |
---|---|
Available in | English |
Founded | 2007 |
Owner | Harvard University |
Founder(s) | Abu Zaynah |
URL | islamopedia |
Commercial | No |
Current status | inactive |
Islamopedia Online was a website dedicated to providing a comprehensive database of information regarding Islam, its most influential leaders, and translations of current topics and religious opinions.
The stated purpose of Islamopedia Online is to provide news and background analysis on Muslim countries and Islamic topics that are not covered in the Western media due to lack of familiarity with the country, the issues, or the personalities as well as the inability to access reliable sources in their original language. Islamopedia features a database of what they deem the most important religious figures in the Muslim world including their positions. Islamopedia also provides a translation in English of major news articles translated from Arabic, Urdu, and Farsi. [1]
Islamopedia Online is part of the Islam in the West Program, hosted at the Alwaleed Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University. It is financially supported by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown University, the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard University, the Transatlantic Program on Islam in the West based at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in Paris, the Social Science Research Council, and the Minerva Fellowship. [1] It is directed by Jocelyne Cesari. [1]
Through its analysis, Islamopedia has concluded that Salafi, Wahabi, and Athari websites dominate the web due to "context collapse" where individuals can ask questions without reprisal or exposure because the internet "annihilates the context and the identity of the user." Hence the many users accept the answer as the "true Islam" even though they may not apply it to their lives; instead the use of the Islamic website solidifies their identification as Muslim in opposition to the West even though one does not adhere to its edicts or instructions. [2] They also solicit papers from experts for inclusion in the database.
Islamopedia Online was founded in 2007 with a grant from the Carnegie Foundation. Its members initiated a comprehensive survey of major topics, opinions, and authorities in the Islamic world determining that the best resource they could provide was in aggregating information from websites that provided religious opinions from Islamic scholars and leaders. Focusing on Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, Urdu, and English, they have collected and aggregated 44,000 entries from over 100 separate websites. [2]
The advisory board of Islamopedia Online includes:
Hamza Yusuf is an American Islamic neo-traditionalist, Islamic scholar, and co-founder of Zaytuna College. He is a proponent of classical learning in Islam and has promoted Islamic sciences and classical teaching methodologies throughout the world.
John Louis Esposito is an American academic, professor of Middle Eastern and religious studies, and scholar of Islamic studies, who serves as Professor of Religion, International Affairs, and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He is also the founding director of the Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim–Christian Understanding at Georgetown.
Muhammad Nasir al-Din, known by his nisbaal-Albani, was an Albanian Islamic scholar known for being a famous muhaddith. A major figure of the Salafi methodology of Islam, he established his reputation in Syria, where his family had moved and where he was educated as a child.
Josef (Yousef) Waleed Meri is an American historian of Interfaith Relations in the Middle East and the history of religion.
Roy Parviz Mottahedeh is an American historian who is Gurney Professor of History, Emeritus at Harvard University, where he taught courses on the pre-modern social and intellectual history of the Islamic Middle East and is an expert on Iranian culture. Mottahedeh served as the director of Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies from 1987 to 1990, and as the inaugural director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University from 2005 to 2011. He is a follower of the Baha'i faith.
European Islam is a hypothesized new branch of Islam that historically originated and developed among the European peoples of the Balkans and parts of countries in Eastern Europe with sizable Muslim minorities which constitute of large populations of European Muslims. Historically significant Muslim populations in Europe include the Ashkali and Balkan Egyptians, Gorani, Torbeshi, Pomaks, Bosniaks, Chechens, Muslim Albanians, Ingushs, Greek Muslims, Vallahades, Muslim Romani people, Balkan Turks, Turkish Cypriots, Cretan Turks, Yörüks, Volga Tatars, Crimean Tatars, Lipka Tatars, Kazakhs, Gajals, and Megleno-Romanians from Notia today living in Turkey, although the majority are secular.
Ali Sultaan Asani is a Kenyan-American academic. He is Murray A. Albertson Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures at Harvard University. He has served as Director of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University as well as the Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.
The Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU) is an interfaith institution based at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C.
Muna AbuSulayman, is an American-born Saudi businesswoman and activist. She is also the former founding Secretary General of the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation, the philanthropic arm of HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal's Kingdom Holding Company and co-host of the Kalam Nawaem television show. In August 2013, AbuSulayman was announced as the Global Ambassador of Silatech.
Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad is Professor Emerita of the History of Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations at the Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim–Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. Her interests and focus include contemporary Islam; intellectual, social and political history in the Arab world; Islam in the West; Quranic Exegesis; and gender and Islam. Haddad's current research focuses on Muslims in the West and on Islamic Revolutionary Movements. She has published extensively in the field of Islamic studies.
Jonathan Andrew Cleveland Brown, born August 7, 1977, is a university academic and American scholar of Islamic studies. Since 2012, he has served as an associate professor at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He holds the Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization at Georgetown University.
Haidar Bagir is an Indonesian entrepreneur, philanthropist, author, lecturer, and the president director of the Mizan Group. His latest book is Islam: The Faith of Love and Happiness published by Kube Publishing.
Ousmane Oumar Kane is a Senegalese Muslim scholar of Islamic studies. He holds the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Chair on Contemporary Islamic Religion and Society at the Harvard Divinity School and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization at Harvard University since July 2012.
Syed Muhammad Ameen Mian Qadri is the Sajjada Nashin of the Khanqah-e-Barkatiya Marehra Shareef of Qadri Order, a subgroup of the Indian Sufi Barelvi movement and founder of Jamia Al Barkaat Aligarh with 50,000,000 adherents.
Shakir Ali Noorie is an Indian Sunni Muslim scholar, preacher and current President of Sunni Dawate Islami, a non-political, religious organisation in Mumbai, India. He adheres to the principles of Ahle Sunnat wa Jamaat (Barelvi) ideology.
Heba Raouf Ezzat is an Egyptian academic, writer and activist. She was a visiting lecturer at the American University in Cairo, and Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science of Cairo University. She is among the prominent Egyptian intellectuals who left Egypt after the 2013 Egyptian coup. Currently Raouf teaches at the Alliance of Civilizations Institute, Ibn Haldun University.
Marcia Hermansen is an American scholar of Islam originally from Canada. Hermansen is professor and director of Islamic World Studies at Loyola University Chicago.
Seán M. McLoughlin is a cultural anthropologist and Professor of the Anthropology of Islam at the University of Leeds. His works use field research, in-depth interviews and documentary analysis to explore the dynamics of Islam and Muslim cultures in contexts of contemporary migration, diaspora and transnationalism. He works mainly with South Asian heritage Muslim communities in the UK, especially British Pakistanis and Kashmiris in the Northern England. McLoughlin is a member of the Sociology of Religion Study Group, British Sociological Association.
Jocelyne Cesari is a French political scientist and Islamic studies scholar who is tenured at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris. Her works focus on religion and international relations, Islam and globalization, Islam and secularism, immigration, and religious pluralism.
Margot Badran is a professor of Middle Eastern history with a focus on women and gender studies. She is a well-known scholar on the topic of Islamic feminism.