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"No can argue that
there is an inherit difference between the media and da`wah" said
Dr. Al-Mirry
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TRIPOLI, November 27 (Mercy for Mankind) – Many Muslim
organization working in the field of da`wah (or conveying the message of
Islam) have been more or less stagnant in reaching out to their audience.
The overwhelming and far reaching impact of the media machine, especially
after the latest development the field of information technology with
Internet has only made things worse.
The World
Islamic Call Society (WICS) made it mind to walk this difficult path, bearing
in mind the undeniable gap with the already existing
competition on the World Wide Web. Having made a
well-thought of plan to enter this field, WCIC cyber
start was a success.
What were the ideas of re-activating the
WICS conference’s web site? What are the difficulties?
Hopes? Vision? We met the “backstage” man behind all
that who knew already the needed commitment to carryout
out such a job. Dr. Al-Ujilly Al-Mirry opens to us about
the story of the WICS with the World Wide Web.
Q: Seeing the big feats that the
cyber world has taken, the Muslim institutions seem to
be really left behind trying to make a start. What do
you have to say about that?
A: I agree with what you are saying
about the da`wah organization being sidelined to the
margins of the Internet, where as many parties have
accomplished great feats. We find ourselves facing a
tremendous flow of information and media works. The
reality is that Islam on the Internet is
“under-represented”, both in terms of quality and
quantity.
Q: What is the role that the
WICS is
playing? And how are you planning to establish a cyber
footing in such a competitive environment?
A: Despite our “humble” start, we
are determined to continue our project on the internet.
A bunch websites are the works are being designed and
developed, with very high standards. Such websites will
be the gate for everyone interested in our message. We
have also made long and short-term plans for future
development. There will be a page for the WCIC itself, a
page for our da`wah publication, a page for the
International Islamic Public Leadership, in addition to
both, the “Lit`arafu” and “Mercy for Mankind”
conference pages —as the latest covers the seventh
general assembly of the WICS.
Q: The Internet, by definition, is
medium with no boundaries, where there is no way to
select a particular audience for a particular message.
Still, as we can see, many Islamic institutions are
trapped in a “self-dialogue” syndrome. What makes
your project different? What is the path that you chose
for your new project?
A: In the beginning, if you allow
me, I would just like to attract your attention that
this is not a “new project”. Last years Lit`arafu
was our first web page to cover the WICS annual
conference. Lit`arafu, our international inter-faith
conference, took place as part of the activities of that
conference.
Having said that about our experience, I
can now move on to answer your question. Our experience
with the Lit`arafu was very rich and inspiring, despite
being our first cyber feat!
The Lit`arafu website has both an Arabic
as well as an English page. It offered all, editorials,
essays, research papers, news reports and interviews.
Also as part of its media presentation, it offered text,
audio and video materials.
As for the coverage the website offered
live coverage, both in audio and video, of the
conference along with a minute-to-minute reporting.
Updating was around the clock and bilingually as well.
This has made it easy and effective for all those who
were interested in the event from any where in the
world.
Q: What do you think about the way
you are dealing with those portals, do you think that it
is a media strategy or a da`wah one?
A: No can argue that there is an inherit
difference between the two! There is no one who can stop
da`wah organizations from using the products of Islamic
thought as well as the cutting edge media. Why do we
feel that there is an inherit contradiction between the
two.
Q: …but we are discussing
reality…
A: I believe that even reality itself
has changed. We now find a number of Islamic
organizations that were able to find themselves a
footing in the league of giant, professional media
organizations. Take IslamOnline.net for example, which
has been able to take a leading role amongst the all the
website in the world, to reach the top thousand—in
accordance to Alexa, the leading Internt ranking
service-- and up to six hundred in times of breaking
news. That takes place amongst six billion websites on
the World Wide Web.
This why we decided to cooperate with
IslamOnline to create a bunch of websites, amongst them
is the “Mercy for man kind” which covers the
WCIC’s seventh general assembly.
The published material has a very high
quality standard that IslamOnline has developed, as
being the first Arab and Islamic organization to receive
the International Organization for Standardization's
certificate, ISO, passing all its editorial, technical
and publishing quality control requirements.
Q: Do not you see that all that you
have mentioned is not being followed by the greater
number of Islamic Media organizations? There are still a
lot of Islamic organizations that have their
reservations regarding the Internet.
A: This is true. Still, this idea is
dead. It even does not address the reality of Muslims in
the new millennium, with all the sturdy changes it
brought along. The media world is a world of the
survival of the fittest. As for those who are still
studying and studying the possibility and feasibility of
dealing with the internet, they will not have no footing
in today’s world, let alone near or far futures. |
