Wednesday, September 6, 2000

Welsh Theology Professor Explores Islam on the Internet By BROCK READ It's not often that Islam and the Internet are mentioned in the same book, let alone the same breath. But Gary Bunt, a lecturer in Islamic studies at the University of Wales, is doing more than just stringing the two words together: With his new book Virtually Islamic (University of Wales Press, 2000), and with a Web site of the same name, Mr. Bunt places what he calls cyber-Islamic environments at the heart of his scholarship. Mr. Bunt (left) says his project is the first to chronicle a singular and important moment in the history of Islam: The establishment of digital communities, he says, has allowed Muslims to explore the peripheries of their faith in an environment based on ideas, not identities. It's made for some surprisingly "innovative and progressive material," such as Queer Jihad, a Web site dedicated to the struggles and successes of gay Muslims. "According to some interpretations of the Koran, Islam prohibits homosexuality," says Mr. Bunt. The Web has provided gay Muslims with "an opportunity to say things about Islam that they wouldn't be able to do in their own town." Conservative Muslims are understandably cool to such challenges to Islam orthodoxy, but Mr. Bunt sees the challenges as parts of a "very exciting process." Islam's more traditional element, once resistant to all things cyber, has come around to the Web as well. It took something of an attack on the religion to galvanize its leaders into action: the appearance of SuraLikeIt, a pro-Christian text written in the style of the Koran. When the site appeared on the Web, says Mr. Bunt, "it woke up a lot of people in traditional institutions up to the medium" and prompted a series of online rebuttals. SuraLikeIt was banished from its original home on America Online after complaints. This is how the new face of Islam operates, Mr. Bunt says. With no real way to hide the diversity of the Web's Islamic community (Saudi Arabia and some other nations have set up complex systems to filter out objectionable material, but they have proven ineffective), other Islamic fringe groups are rushing to put forth their views as well. The Web sites Mr. Bunt has studied are remarkably heterogeneous, such as an online mosque in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and a three-dimensional computer tour of Mecca. Mr. Bunt is especially interested in examining different translations of the Koran on the Web and how they reflect nuanced understandings of the religion. The Internet, Mr. Bunt says, is not stripping Islam of its rituals: There is software that helps people calculate the direction of Mecca so they know which way to face when praying, for example. But it is pushing the religion away from geography and toward a more global outlook. "People can get an answer to a theological or interpretive question without going to the mosque," Mr. Bunt points out. "It is really chipping away." Mr. Bunt, meanwhile, is trying to keep time from chipping away at the subjects of his research: Unlike printed media, Internet sites can disappear into thin air. "That's one of the issues that one has to get over," he explains. "We're working with a changing or evolving bookshelf." Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

Hundreds of faculty members go on strike at Eastern Michigan U. In third straight drop, U.S. medical-school applications fall 6 percent Professor at Hebrew U. must pay damages to politician for comparing him to Nazis Welsh theology professor explores Islam on the Internet A president finds that building a reputation is difficult for an online institution