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History_of_Allah-com, page : 2
Perhaps the most prestigious web address that Muslims might imagine is
Allah.com. Who stands behind it, and what can we learn from looking at its history?
This chapter provides a ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1973) of the development
of the site. As a historian of Islam, my primary interest here has been to
find out what attitudes and changes in attitudes among contemporary Muslims
the site may reflect and help us to understand. The analysis, I hope, will demonstrate
that proponents of ‘traditional’ content on the internet not only use the
106 WEB HISTORY
new medium to extend existing practices and ideas but thereby also contribute to
structural changes that may be interpreted as ‘modern.’
I cannot begin here to engage the vast literature on Islam and modernity.
Space only permits me to outline my own use of the term. A key mark of ‘modernity’
is a conscious distancing from an inherited/past order of things (often conceptualized
as ‘tradition’) in favor of an order devised according to transparent
standards that are deemed valid not because they already exist and are therefore
socially self-evident, but because they conform to norms of rationality and are
open to public review and criticism in which every rational individual can partake.
‘Rationality’ here need not necessarily mean ‘secular’ rationality. In this definition,
Allah.com. Who stands behind it, and what can we learn from looking at its history?
This chapter provides a ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1973) of the development
of the site. As a historian of Islam, my primary interest here has been to
find out what attitudes and changes in attitudes among contemporary Muslims
the site may reflect and help us to understand. The analysis, I hope, will demonstrate
that proponents of ‘traditional’ content on the internet not only use the
106 WEB HISTORY
new medium to extend existing practices and ideas but thereby also contribute to
structural changes that may be interpreted as ‘modern.’
I cannot begin here to engage the vast literature on Islam and modernity.
Space only permits me to outline my own use of the term. A key mark of ‘modernity’
is a conscious distancing from an inherited/past order of things (often conceptualized
as ‘tradition’) in favor of an order devised according to transparent
standards that are deemed valid not because they already exist and are therefore
socially self-evident, but because they conform to norms of rationality and are
open to public review and criticism in which every rational individual can partake.
‘Rationality’ here need not necessarily mean ‘secular’ rationality. In this definition,