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Some thoughts on how Muslims must utilise the internet and the Web to spread Islam:

1. Howard Rheingold is a writer, teacher and commentator on modern communications technologies, such as the web, and originator of the term ‘virtual community’, comments:

‘In fact the person you make a connection with might be on the other side of the world, and while that’s not true of everybody, certainly for me, and I bet its true for you (the interviewer), there are very few places in the world where I can go and not get at least one and maybe 15 people to show up for lunch, or, or dinner, and they’re, the conversation starts immediately because we know that we share some things in common. So does it matter that your Slovenian, and I’m American, what matters is that we have this shared interest.’

Spread the message. Use Facebook, Youtube, Twitter…

2. Lee Siegel is an author and a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Reviews and Criticism. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Daily Beast. He commented:

‘…the media of radio was used by the BBC to empower people in occupied countries during the Second World War. At the same time, without radio, hundreds of thousands of people would not have been killed so quickly in Rwanda.

The web is pleasure, relaxation, thrill, annoyance, oppression, exhilaration of the web, like any piece of technology is an amplification of human nature, every aspect of human nature.’

Let’s use the web to dispel all the myths about Islam.

3. Peter Thiel is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist and co-founder of PayPal, comments:

‘And I think it would be very strange if the number of countries in the year 2050 would be exactly 192. I think its likely to me more or less. And what I’m willing to predict is that if it’s more you will have a world with greater individual freedom, there may be greater security problems, may be other problems associated with it. If you have fewer you’ll end up with a world of more government power and less individual freedom.

And technology will decide the question of the number of countries that exist in the world in 2050 more than anything else.’

Will there be a united Muslim world in the future? A reduction of 50 disparate countries into one?

4. Vint Cerf is Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist of Google, and is often referred to as ‘the father of the internet’. He comments:

‘Some people might worry that there is too much freedom, to individuals using the internet, that somehow governments will disappear because people will be able to do whatever they want to. I don’t think that’s a likely outcome frankly the internet exists in the real world. It exists in a society that we all inhabit and a multiple societies, multiple cultures.

It’s absolutely essential to understand that the internet and the notion of cyber space is not divorced from the real world. We live in the real world the internet lives in the real world, our direction is with each other, we’re not in some fictitious strange planet somewhere else, they are a part of the world we live in. It’s essential that we live in a world of love because anarchy is not a good path for civilisation to pursue. I don’t think the internet will contribute to anarchy I think it will contribute to collaborative development of our civilisation.’

Frankly, the only guarantee for a safer world is Islam as only Islam transcends religion, race, gender, language and nationality.

Please submit your views.