Category Archives: Blogosphere

Blog About Palestine Day – May 15th 2008

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In order to support “Blog About Palestine” Day, the editors of Ijtema.net would like to highlight the best entries from this event on the site, insha’Allah. So if you are planning to join in, please remember to forward us the link to your post on May 15th. You can e-mail us at editor[at]ijtema[dot]net, with the subject “Blog About Palestine Day“, or leave a comment on this page: http://ijtema.net/blog-about-palestine-day/

From the Facebook event page:

Help raise awareness about the Palestinian plight and the everyday experiences of an average Palestinian. On May 15th 2008, right an article or a blog post that is related Palestine or the Palestinians in any way.

It does not have to political, it could talk about the past, present, or future. It could talk about social issues, economical issues, political issues, even about art. You could talk about how do people go about their day lives, how do they travel, how do they go to school, how do they live ..etc. You could talk about your parents’ or grandparents’ memories of the Nakba of 1948, or about the life in forced exile, or about outlooks for possible peaceful resolutions.

You don’t have to be a Palestinian or an Arab to participate. You could offer your views as a non-Palestinian on the issue. We just seek to get the word out and inform people about us.

Please spread the word about this initiative – click here for some cool blog buttons and banners.

Welcome to Ijtema 2.0!

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Bismillah-hiRahma-niRaheem
In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful

March 2007 saw the launch of Ijtema.net – a service aiming to promote the true voice of the Muslim community, in an effort to combat the Islamophobic diatribe that regularly floods the results pages of your typical Islam-related Google search. To this end, the editorial team turned to a relatively untapped source of Muslim opinion and debate: the blogosphere, bringing our readers a daily selection of well-written and insightful entries.

One year on, however, it has become obvious that relying on the written word alone is not the best way to engage the short attention spans of the up-and-coming “YouTube generation”. Thus, to celebrate our first anniversary, we decided to treat the site to a makeover, aiming to relaunch with a variety of new, and eye-catching multimedia content, including photography, videos and podcasts.

Our first challenge was to familiarize ourselves with a completely different breed of Muslim blogger – those who express themselves in imagery, rather than print – hence, the inspiration behind the Ijtema.net photo contest (click here for the results!).

Next, we worked to bring you the best of the Islamic videosphere and Art world, by collaborating with ‘experts’ in these fields: namely the hard-working guys down at HalalTube.com, and the Muslim artist Teakster, who has been a great help in judging and organising the photo contest. Our own team member, sister iMuslim, will be making full use of her latest iPod by taking care of the Audio and podcast side of things, insha’Allah. Finally, the rest of the crew will continue in their original roles of sifting through the Muslim blogosphere, in search of interesting articles that they feel are worth sharing.

With all that in place, what now remains is the long-term challenge of bringing you, the readers, inspiring content that covers the spectrum of multimedia creativity; and with Allah’s help, everything is easy.

So please feel free to navigate the new features of the site, give us your feedback, and help us to spread the beauty of Islam by telling others about this initiative, and by sending in your tips.

Huge thanks to Shazia Mistry who did an excellent job redesigning the new site, masha’Allah, based on the Visionary template. Also to Teakster for producing our very first official logo!

May Allah accept our endeavours, and grant His Peace, Mercy and Blessings to us all. Ameen.

Be a Kind Blogger!

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The Don’t Be Sad blog has introduced the “Kind Blogger” badge to recognize acts of kindness and charity among bloggers and others.

Kind blogger badges are awarded for supporting the Random acts of Kindness project; principally for submissions which get published at Don’t be sad.

Don’t Be Sad has already listed a number of simple and achievable acts of kindness, such as removing an obstacle from a path and simply smiling. Contribute to the list and promote kindness amongst your fellow bloggers!

Want a New Brass Crescent?

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A few reactions have been extreme, and others receptive. Brass Crescent has been doing an excellent job by awarding deserving bloggers with the honour and obviously there will be opposition when you have a sizeable blogosphere. The Muslim blogosphere is definitely not huge and choosing the same blogs year after year doesn’t help the case either. (I say this on my personal experience in sieving through blogs for nearly a year now)

There are a few things which obviously need to amended:

1. For example, Ali Eteraz was chosen, yet his blog is some of the worst Modernist Baatilism, vomited by Shayton, regurgitated from Eteraz’s Jinni Qareen, then lapped up by the worst “modernist” westerners to have plagued the Muslims in this century. [Abul Layth]

2. Two of the blogs nominated in the Best Design category have free WordPress themes (with a slight modification in one) installed. Where is the design?

3. Like some bloggers (e.g., Abu Layth), I’m a bit disappointed with the picks this year, finding the overall mix a bit ideologically lopsided (even if it’s in my camp’s favour). Quite a few brilliant, scholarly bloggers inexplicably went unmentioned. (Was most of the Islamophere in khalwa or something during the 1st round of voting?) It’s odd. [Akram]

4. “Best Female Blog- “Nzingha is “honest and insightful” about Saudi Arabia, but “never makes Islam look bad in the process.” Plus, “she’s hilarious.”

I mean, what? Somebody honest and insightful automatically carries a significant chance of making Islam look bad?

These guys need a break. [Manas]

I wonder why South Asia and Middle East need a special category, while Europe and US don’t. Are these blogs incompetent to compete in the Best Blog category? Well, the truth of the matter is that Pakistaniat (a group blog) gets more visitors in a day than those ‘elite’ blogs get in a month, and it’s in the same category as Adnan’s (a personal blog) blog! Pakistaniat competing with Indian Muslim Blog would have at least made the competition even, but then…

I think its time to change.