MuslimSpace.com Provides Online Networking Forum

May 4, 2006

Source: The Daily Reveille

http://www.lsureveille.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/05/04/44597acc48c32

On May 4, 2006 The Daily Reveille reported, "In the wake of the success of sites like Facebook.com and MySpace.com, followers of one religion have taken their own piece of the Internet social networking pie. Mohamed El-Fatatry, a Muslim who studied computer science at the American University of Sharjah, created MuslimSpace.com, a social network for Muslims that is similar to MySpace. El-Fatatry said in an e-mail that he created the site in response to the adult content on other social networking Web sites. 'The reason I created it was simply that popular social-networking Web sites like MySpace and Hi5 were often filled with adult advertisements, corrupted content and racist members who constantly attack Muslims and Islam,' El-Fatatry said. 'However, I also found out that there was a minority who like to use social networking the "clean" way and were disturbed at what they found on these popular sites.' El-Fatatry said this group gave him the idea to create a site similar to MySpace for Muslims and anyone wanting to communicate with Muslims. The site is carefully monitored, and there are strict rules to keep the site 'clean'... The site has a large number of non-Muslim members as well... One controversial policy of MuslimSpace is that the site requires women to wear proper Hijabs or head scarfs in their profile’s picture. It also requires members to check a box indicating they swear to Allah to adhere to the Web site’s terms and conditions. Despite these controversies, the Web site is growing quickly. 'MuslimSpace.com has around 8,000 members, and it’s growing quickly by around 150 to 200 members a day,' El-Fatatry said. 'However, the site growth has been exponential so far, so we hope to hit the 20,000 milestone within a month or two.'”