WikiIslam

WikiIslam is a collaboratively-edited wiki focused, critically, on controversial topics of Islamic law and belief. The wiki prioritizes the inclusion of primary and traditional Islamic references (including the Quran, Hadith, and early Islamic scholars and authorities) in its articles on various such topics, sources its editors suggest are generally hidden from the public. This is, broadly speaking, different from Wikipedia articles on topics of Islam, as Wikipedia articles on Islam tend to prefer secondary and tertiary sources (usually from Western universities), while placing particular emphasis and dedicating considerable real-estate to modernist interpretations of Islam.

The community further differentiates itself from Wikipedia on the basis that "opinions critical of Islam are not censored on WikiIslam for political correctness."[1]

It would appear that it is for this reason that the site describes itself as a "source of information on Islam . . . based primarily on its own sources"[2][3]

WikiIslam-logo

History

Since December 2015, the Ex-Muslims of North America took over ownership and operation of WikiIslam and has started working on transforming the site from a purely polemical and even Islamophobic site into a more objective, though perhaps still primarily critical, resource.[4] There remains, however, some ways to go in achieving this.

In September 2006, WikiIslam was launched in collaboration with individuals from Faith Freedom International.[5] In August 2008, the WikiIslam site was moved to a new server and since then it has been operating independently.[6]

Recent Changes & Past Reception

Since coming under new management in 2015, much of the Islamophobic content has been removed from the site, with some of the most outrageous content being deleted almost immediately. While some such content still exists on the website, it continues to be removed. Since 2015, more than 1000 pages have been removed from the website as a part of this purge.

Back in 2007, however, WikiIslam was the subject of an article in the 7/2007 issue of the journal Contemporary Islam, entitled "Cyber-Islamophobia? The case of WikiIslam",[1] which argued that the website committed selection bias by collecting only negative or critical material.[1][7] The article stated that "In relation to the criteria set up by the Runnymede Trust ... it [would have been] quite easy to label most of the material [that was] published on WikiIslam as expressions of Islamophobia." Göran Larsson added that "[m]y impression is that the stories reported by WikiIslam have merely been selected to show that Muslims are ignorant, backward or even stupid."[1][8]

However, even in 2007, because of the use of material obtained from other more relied-upon websites, such as MEMRI, the same article noted that "it [was] much more difficult to argue that all information posted on WikiIslam [was] Islamophobic by nature".[1]

The apostasy testimonies previously hosted on WikiIslam, that have since been removed, were also described as "an important element in an Islamophobic world view that presents Islam and Muslims as diametrically opposite to all other world views."[9]

References
  1. Cyber-Islamophobia? The case of WikiIslam, Journal: Contemporary Islam, publisher Springer Netherlands, ISSN 1872-0218 (Print) 1872-0226
  2. "About WikiIslam". WikiIslam. Archived from the original on 30 June 2018. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  3. "Ex-Muslims of North America takes ownership and operation of WikiIslam". Ex-Muslims of North America. 2015-12-03. Retrieved 2020-05-26.
  4. "Ex-Muslims of North America takes ownership and operation of WikiIslam". Ex-Muslims of North America. 2015-12-03. Retrieved 2020-05-26.
  5. On Monday Sept 4, 2006, (WikiIslam) was opened to the public. Archived 2015-10-01 at the Wayback Machine
  6. "WikiIslam". Archived from the original on 2016-06-24. Retrieved 2016-07-06.
  7. "Compared to “Muslim homepages”, i.e. those set up by believing Muslims, WikiIslam contained only negative and critical examples. This bias was clearly represented in the section called “laughing with the prophet” (a page rapidly removed once the site came under new ownership), which presented seemingly absurd stories and reports from the life of prophet Muhammad (i.e. hadith reports)." ibid.
  8. Islamophobia: A Challenge For Us All, p. 5, Runnymede Trust (1997).
  9. Enstedt, Daniel; Larson, Göran (2013). "Telling the Truth about Islam? Apostasy Narratives and Representations of Islam on WikiIslam.net" (PDF). CyberOrient. 7 (1): 88. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
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