Muxlim Pal
Muxlim Pal To Be First Online Muslim Virtual World – StartUpArabia
Muxlim Pal To Be First Online Muslim Virtual World
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | November 3, 2008 – 1:47 pm |MuxlimMuxlim, the online Muslim social media community service, plans to launch “Muxlim Pal”, a Muslim-oriented virtual world pretty similar in principle to Second Life, complete with its own currency and culture.
The virtual world should be launched in a few weeks time and will allow, in addition to all the regular things that can be done in other virtual worlds, the opportunity to wear a hijab, and go to prayer rooms for example.
Intriguing! Islamic sacred spaces already exist in Second Life (see http://www.digitalislam.eu/article.do?articleId=1877) and hijab or other “religious dresses” are also possible there. So, I guess the idea behind Muxlim Pal is not only to make hijab/ prayer rooms etc. possible since this already out there in other virtual environments. It will be interesting to see how Muxlim Pal differs from, say, Second Life and if these differences are “Islamic”.
I was, for a short while, the “Muslims spokesperson” on Second Life. These days, IslamOnline has a presence there, but the other large-scale Muslim sim isn’t managed by a Muslim – indeed, its owner’s identity remains a mystery, and there are suspicions it is being financed by US Homeland Security as a snare. Muslims were also victims of some pretty high profile Islamophobic rhetoric by a Second Life veteran, with some of the old timer bloggers joining in, whilst Nazi attacks on Muslims was largely ignored by the anti-fascists – not suprising, given the main anti-Nazi group is led by someone with less than kindly views about Islam. No surprise, then, to see Muslims setting up elsewhere.
Well, it is true that some Islamic spaces already exist in Second Life, but the thing is that Second Life is blocked in some Islamic countries because of some other aspects that they deem unsuitable or offensive to Muslim culture.
So I think what Muxlim are trying to do is create a virtual world that targets Muslim communities and takes their sensitivities and concerns into consideration, avoiding blocks by certain countries, and potentially reaching more Muslims.
It should be interesting to follow how well this works out and how successful it is with Muslims around the world.
Thanks for the answers! I am not a frequent visitor to second life. Indeed it will be interesting to follow it. Islamophobes will also be able to register for Muxlim Pal, I guess… As long as they do not carry the nic “Islamophobe” or so.
But basically, if it really turns out to be different from Second Life, is the difference then to be explained as “Islamic”? And, how are the admins going to control sociality on Muxlim Pal?