Comments on: “You Down with OMC?” By Imam Yusuf Rios al-Maliki

By: suhaib webb

suhaib webb — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:41:14 +0000

Perhaps its you?

By: student

student — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:04:16 +0000

I think most of the problems arise in the comments (and probably in the emails that are sent to bloggers), so some exit-strategy ideas:

- Eliminate comments entirely, or on some posts. This seems drastic, yes. But comments are not fard.
- Force commenters to subscribe (I thought that was being implemented with Disqus?) and eliminate the rabble-rousers and repeat offenders.
- Set stricter parameters on the content of comments and weed out repeat offenders.

There must be more, but understandably it is difficult. Especially because the Muslim e-Ummah is as diverse as the real Ummah, and so inevitably people will be offended by each other's views. There should be room for conversation and challenging opinions, but it must be done in a civil manner.

Maybe someone should write a brief manual on the Islamic etiquette of blogging?

By: Nadeem Gulam

Nadeem Gulam — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:20:01 +0000

yes, it confused me too.

By: ebarek

ebarek — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:47:23 +0000

Salam Alikum Brother Abul-Hussein,

Maybe it would be nice to get all interesting, intellectual Islamic Online Website to gather under a common umbrella as to build up a strong Muslim Community and allow the users to easily identitythose websites.

Salam Alikum WR WB

Mb

By: ebarek

ebarek — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:46:59 +0000

By: Abdulmalik

Abdulmalik — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:55:31 +0000

Aslaamu alaykum
Is Imam Yusuf Rios al-Maliki and Abul-Hussein the same person?

By: Zakir

Zakir — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:42:39 +0000

Salam,

You are so right Imam Yusuf. We are presenting Islam through OMC in such a way- that it will distance non-muslims even more.

By: SaqibSaab

SaqibSaab — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:00:29 +0000

JAK for recognizing this. One example can be how often Muslims backbite about others online. Even if they try to hide behind the fact that it's public, before the person (usually a scholar) reads it, it's already backbiting. And even if the person reads it, it's still not benefiting of a Muslim to run their mouths like that.

May Allah protect us.

By: Mohammed Khan

Mohammed Khan — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:07:28 +0000

This is a phenomenon that is not just limited to the Muslim community.

We find in blogs and forums all over the internet people who post comments and make discussions that they would never dream of doing in person.

Cursing, arrogance, open displays of hatred (including down right racism), some of the negative aspects that we have come to face with the dawn of the internet age, all have come about as a result of this barrier that stops people from having to face any physical repercussions.

There was an instance at my university where a student was anonymously making stupid and incessant comments on a university discussion site. Then somebody posted a photo of him online, when people recognised him he was chased around and almost beaten. Suffice to say, after that he stopped posting on the site. I don't agree with police forces that 'promote virtue and prevent vice', but maybe we should have one for the internet?

By: Mari

Mari — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 03:53:36 +0000

Jazak! I could not agree more. One thing related to this that I experienced with the OMC is that as Muslims (more so sisters) we do not know how to agree to disagree. Often times petty immature things are taken out of context on these social networking sites like FB and Myspace.Now that I have taken myself off of them I truly feel that they are a big source of fitna in trying to form sisterhood…
as always thanks for the great post