Ikhwanweb :: The Muslim Brotherhood Official English Website

Muslim Brotherhood Websites

In early 2000, ashahed2000 website was launched, http://ashahed2000.tripod.com. A Muslim Brotherhood group called it "Ashahed (witness) for Political and Strategic Studies" and called itself "the People"s Assembly elections watchdog". It continued posting on this website until September 2002. It was hosted for free on a free hosting website, making its material available for web surfers until now.

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The Muslim Brotherhood Websites are a group of websites launched by the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt or any organization around the world claiming to be endorsing the Muslim Brotherhood ideology. These websites are announced by a Muslim Brotherhood entity as an official representative of the organization or one of its branches. They are either run by individuals or groups affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Content

1- Chronology
2- www.aldaawah.org
3- Ikhwanonline
4- Parliamentary elections, Muslim Brotherhood websites
5- Ikhwanweb
6- Websites of Muslim Brotherhood worldwide
7- Specialization in Muslim Brotherhood websites
8- Muslim Brotherhood student websites
9- Chronology of launching Muslim Brotherhood student websites
10- Muslim Brotherhood personal websites
11- The Muslim Brotherhood and blogging
12- How the Muslim Brotherhood dealt with its previous websites
13- More Muslim Brotherhood initiatives on cyberspace
14- See also
15- External links

         
The Muslim Brotherhood began using cyberspace as a new and effective means of communication at a time when most attempts to have a media outlet have failed to find their way into official recognition.

Its first attempt was on May, 20th, 1998 in aldaawah website, http://www.aldaawah.org. The information on the website"s domain showed that it was registered in the name of Data.com, Chicago, the United States of America

In early 2000, ashahed2000 website was launched, http://ashahed2000.tripod.com. A Muslim Brotherhood group called it "Ashahed (witness) for Political and Strategic Studies" and called itself "the People"s Assembly elections watchdog". It continued posting on this website until September 2002. It was hosted for free on a free hosting website, making its material available for web surfers until now.

Islam is the solution website, http://www.khayma.com/islamissolution, was launched on February, 22nd, 2000 by Muslim Brotherhood activist Abu Adnan. It was launched on the free hosting website www.khayma.com. The site offered various sub links: In the shade of the daawah, Muslim Palestine, Martyrs on the way and Islamic songs. Its material is still available for web surfers until now.

 Egypt-facts websites, http://www.egypt-facts.org, was launched on March, 29th, 2000. Its domain showed that it was registered in the name of a person based in New Mexico, the United States of America .
 
Amlalommah (hope of the nation) website, http://www.amlalommah.org, (renamed www.amlalommah.net in late 2001) was founded in August, 24th, 2000 two months before Egyptian parliamentary elections. It is website of the Muslim Brotherhood in the coastal city of Alexandria. Its domain information showed that it was registered in the name of Ali Abd Al-Fattah, a Muslim Brotherhood leader in the city.

The ikhwan.net website, http://ikhwan.net, was launched on Jan, 21st, 2001. The domain information showed it was registered in the name a person in Al-Rayah street , Jiddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The ikhwan.net website expanded its network and launched Saraya Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimeen room on the Middle East domain on the well-known PalTalk program, triggering several disagreements with leaders in the group until tensions were over and the room was changed into Saraya Al Da3wah. The room was famous for its weekly "Tuesday Lesson" which managed to host most of the movement"s top leaders and figures worldwide, in addition to the lesson of Wagdi Ghoneim on Thursday. The website held several courses like the course of Al Aqsa Mosque sciences streamed from Holy Jerusalem. The website also held several open days to mark several events like marking the anniversary of the martyrdom of sheikh Hassan Al Banna- founder of the Muslim Beotherhood- the International Day of Al-Quds. The website"s recent contributions included the Muslim Brotherhood"s web encyclopedia, http://ikhwan.net/wiki, the website of Hassan Al-Banna, http://www.hassanalbanna.org, and the website of release40, http://www.release40.com. ikhwan.net used several domains like, http://www.ikhwan-info.net, http://www.al-multaqa.net.

 
Towards Light, http://www.lewaeddin.4t.com, was launched on August, 20th, 2001, by a Muslim Brotherhood youth called Hani Louai Aldin on a free hosting website as a personal webpage concerned with posting the Islamic movement heritage. It included all messages and some articles of imam Hassan Al Banna and message of imam Al Houdaibi, the second chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Gam3aonline website, http://www.gam3aonline.com, was launched on September, 15, 2001. Its domain information showed it based in a region in Saba Pasha, Alexandria in the name of Bassem Mohamed Mohamed, the engineer who established the website"s database and supervised its launching and developing along with some of his colleagues in the university years.

kate3 (boycott) website, http://www.kate3.com, was launched on May, 16th, 2002, by The Boycott Committee in the Professional Unions in Alexandria. It was one of the first specialized websites launched by the group. It was launched upon establishing the Boycott Committee of the Committee of Coordination between Professional Unions. It launched several campaigns and posted lists of boycotted products. The domain information showed it was registered in the name of John McCoy in Alexandria.
 
Egypt window website, http://www.egyptwindow.net, was launched on December, 2nd, 2002. Its developed version was launched in September 2003. The domain information showed it was registered in the name of a person living in London, UK. This website was launched to be a mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood in Delta of Egypt. However, the difficulties in coordination between those governorates forced every governorate to launch its own website.
 
The above mentioned websites are the oldest websites that the group launched. Most of them were registered in uncertain names of persons based outside Egypt- except for Alexandrian websites. This reflects the security dimension that haunted founders of these websites. They were cautious of the security surveillance which is still an effective element in the Muslim Brotherhood"s behavior in Egypt.

- www.aldaawah.orge website:
 This website was launched on May, 20, 1998 and it included three subsidiary websites:

1- al-ikhwan-al-muslimoon (The Muslim Brotherhood) website to propagate for the group, http://www.al-ikhwan-al-muslimoon.org. It remained a modest website whose links mostly had no material.

2- Risalatul Ikhwan (The Muslim Brotherhood"s message) website which later developed into the current website, http://www.ikhwanpress.com, which was launched in 2003.

3- . Al-Da"wah magazine website where one can surf the issues of the magazine licensed in London to Dr. Ahmed Fahmi Abdul Magid.
 
-Ikhwanonline website:

After years of Muslim Brotherhood web experiences, these experiences didn"t gain a considerable success because they were spearheaded by energetic volunteers. Due to demands of the group"s grassroots for a Muslim Brotherhood official website that can work as its mouthpiece, several workshops were held to formulate a prototype for the group"s website. These workshops expanded to include some workers in the group"s media and political sections in governorates.

Launching the website:

After technical and administrative problems, Ikhwanonline.com was launched in April 2003 to be the group"s official website. The website administration was based on professionals. The Egyptian Company for Scientific Services (ECSS)- headed by Dr. Gamal Nassar as the website"s first editor-in-chief- was formed and was based in Manial Al-Rawda near the Muslim Brotherhood"s main office. On May, 16th, 2004, the flat from which the website is launched, was raided and all contents were seized in addition to detaining Dr. Nassar in the case dubbed Martyr Akram Zohairi Case. The website dropped for two days because its servers were seized. However, a Muslim Brotherhood technical group managed to re-launch it. The number of the website surfers hugely surged during 2005 parliamentary elections making it gain a berth in Egypt"s 100 most surfed websites. However, it continued dropping till it reached 404 place in October 2008 with surfers from Egypt still have the lion"s share of surfing it (account for more than 50%) followed by surfers in Saudi Arabia , Algeria and Kuwait. Muslim Brotherhood young journalist Abdel Galil El-Sharnoubi is the current editor-in-chief of Ikhwanonline.

Parliamentary elections and Muslim Brotherhood websites:

Major events in the Egyptian public affairs were launching pads seized by the Muslim Brotherhood to launch websites. This first happened in 2000 parliamentary elections with websites like Amlalommah (hope of the nation) website, http://www.amlalommah.org, to be the mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood in Alexandria and its MPs. Muslim Brotherhood MPs Hussein Mohamed Ibrahim and Hamdi Hassan launched their own websites, Www.2Honline.com (changed later to www.2h4all.com). Then came 2005 parliamentary elections during which every Muslim Brotherhood office governorate-wide launched its own website.

A year later, the website of the Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary bloc www.nowabikhwan.com was launched to document the group"s parliamentary experience and to cover the MPs" activities. It was launched in late 2006 and most of its surfers are from Egypt followed by Morocco.
 
Ikhwanweb:

Ikhwanweb was launched on October, 16th, 2005 to be the Muslim Brotherhood"s first official English website. It was directed to western surfers and researchers to directly show the group"s views and methods. The chief editor of the website"s Cairo office is Khaled Hamza, a Muslim Brotherhood figure with a considerable knowledge of the discourse. The website was first launched with a support from engineer Khairat Al-Shater, the jailed Muslim Brotherhood"s second deputy chairman.
 
Launching the website reflected the group"s attitude to intellectually contact the West and its decision making bodies. Being the Muslim world"s biggest political group which is closely watched by the West and its researchers especially after September 2001 attacks, the group found out that the English material about the group and its reformist attitude is so scarce. So it decided to launch this website to increase the material and show its reformist method.

Websites of the Muslim Brotherhood Worldwide:

Only three Islamist movements in three countries put the Muslim Brotherhood banner in their websites: Sudan, http://www.ikhwansd.com, Syria, http://www.ikhwansyria.com and Jordan, http://www.ikhwan-jor.com followed by Lebanon, http://www.al-jamaa.net, Libya, http://www.almukhtar.org, and Hamas movement of Palestine, http://www.palestine-info.info. These three websites contain sub material that frankly shows the ideological link with the parent group. In spite of the strong relation between the Muslim Brotherhood in Algeria and the parent group, but the former"s website is under the banner of the Movement for the Society of Peace, http://www.hmsalgeria.net, without referring to the parent group in its sub material, while other websites representing Muslim Brotherhood leaning bodies appear with the name of the organizations, parties, societies or establishments through which these bodies work in their respective countries, like Yemeni Congregation for Reform"s website, http://www.al-Islah.net, Iraqi Islamic Party, http://www.iraqiparty.com, Al-Eslah (Reform) Society in Bahrain, http://www.aleslah.org, the Islamic Party for Justice and Development in Eritrea, http://www.alkhalas.org, the Union of Islamic Communities and Organizations in Italy, http://www.islam-ucoii.it, and Al-Nahda (Renaissance) Movement in Tunisia, http://www.nahdha.info.

Those websites were launched in different periods of time. Some of them were launched earlier like the website of Italy"s Muslim Brotherhood, http://www.islam-ucoii.it, in February 1999, Bahrain"s Muslim Brotherhood, http://www.aleslah.org, in March 1999, Eritrea"s Muslim Brotherhood in January 2000, Algeria"s Muslim Brotherhood in December 2002, Libya"s Muslim Brotherhood in February 2002, Iraq"s Muslim Brotherhood in August 2003, and Sudan"s Muslim Brotherhood in March 2005.

Specialization in Muslim Brotherhood websites:

The Muslim Brotherhood websites were first general then they started to be more specialized. The more they get specialized, the more they increase. Websites of universities emerged from websites of governorates, like the website of the Muslim Brotherhood youth in the Alexandria University , www.gam3aonline.com which was launched only months after launching the official website of the Muslim Brotherhood in the governorate www.amlalommah.net, because the youth weren"t content with just a subsection in the governorate"s website. The same happened with websites of other universities. The specialization phenomenon expanded to launching a website to follow up and document the activities of Muslim Brotherhood MPs in parliament, www.nowabikhwan.com, a website for the Muslim Brotherhood"s heritage, www.torathikhwan.com, a website for the human rights file which the freedom cost, www.freedomcost.com, and the Muslim Brotherhood"s children"s section launched its website, awladnaa, www.awladnaa.net.
 
Muslim Brotherhood student websites:

The Muslim Brotherhood students managed to launch a group of websites that represent them and cover the activities they carry out. A big number of these websites are launched at the beginning of every academic year. The month September annually accounts for most websites launched, and the remainder are launched in near months like December. These websites generally suffer from weak capabilities because of the weak funding and because they are mainly based on efforts of volunteers from the Muslim Brotherhood students whose lectures and exams are clearly affected by dedicating their time and effort to these websites. Distinguished cases of success were spotted in only the two websites of universities Cairo and Alexandria as both websites have gained leading places on Alexa.

The website of www.alltalaba.com- Cairo University was ranked first among the Muslim Brotherhood student websites, achieving a Traffic Rank of 16.860 in October 2008, leading the group"s website, www.ikhwanonline.com, that achieved a traffic rank of 22,338. The former was ranked 302 among Egyptian websites while the group"s official website was ranked 404. Alltalaba.com was considerably leading during the academic year due to its student nature.

The website of Alexandrian students, www.gam3aonline.com, was ranked second, achieving a Traffic Rank of 67.944 on the same date although it was launched three years before www.alltalaba.com. The big number Cairo University students may be a factor in achieving this huge difference.
 

Timeline of launching Muslim Brotherhood student websites:

The following is a timeline of the most well-known websites, and the date in which each was launched (in the period 2001-2005):

1. Website of the Muslim Brotherhood students in Alexandria University, www.gam3aonline.com, was launched on Sep, 15th, 2001
2. Website of the central secretariat of student section, www.yalltalaba.com, was launched on 25 March 2004

3. Website of the central secretariat of the secondary school section, www.shababwebas.com, was launched on Sep, 2nd, 2004.

4. Website of the Muslim Brotherhood students in Cairo University, www.alltalaba.com, was launched on Sept, 29th, 2004.

5. Website of the Muslim Brotherhood students in Helwan University, www.algam3a.com, launched on Dec, 13th, 2004.

6. Website of the Muslim Brotherhood students in Al-Azhar University , www.azharway.com, launched on Dec, 18th, 2004.

7. Website of the Muslim Brotherhood students in Zagazig University , www.sharkawionline.co, launched on Sep, 16th, 2005.

8. Website of the Muslim Brotherhood students in Beheira, www.ba7rawy.com, launched on Sep, 19th, 2005

Muslim Brotherhood personal websites:

The sense of self-denial among the Muslim Brotherhood led to launching only a few personal websites launched by persons in the group. The most prominent of these websites are two websites of imam Hassan Al Banna, the founder of the group: www.hassanalbanna.com, and www.hassanalbanna.org. These websites were actually launched by fans and supporters of these figures, like the website of Sheikh Mohamed Abdullah Al Khatib, www.alkhateeb.net, com, website of sheikh Al Ghannoushi, www.ghannoushi.net, website of sheikh Mohamed Hussein Eissa, www.nfaes.com, and website of sheikh Wagdi Ghoneim, www.wagdighoneim.com.

The Muslim Brotherhood and blogging:

The Muslim Brotherhood started the experience of blogging in 2005 with a few weblogs. It expanded in late 2006 and early 2007 with blogs against the military trial like:

www.ensaa.blogspot.com
www.freebeshr.com
www.freehassanmalek.blogspot.com
www.khirat-elshater.com

and blogs of the Muslim Brotherhood youth like:

www.ana-ikhwan.blogspot.com
www.ihoudaiby.blogspot.com
www.yallameshmohem.blogspot.com
www.ebn-akh.blogspot.com
www.nojoomol7era.blogspot.com

These weblogs gave a humane image of the group and its individuals previously seen as blocs of people who robotically move and appear in a demonstration or a funeral. These weblogs anatomized the Muslim Brotherhood individual through showing his ideas, convictions and even sometimes his criticism to the group.

The group"s reaction to the blogging took the shape of welcoming, shunning and containment. However, many see that the experience of blogging adds to the group"s position.
 
How the Muslim Brotherhood dealt with its previous websites:

The Muslim Brotherhood dealt indifferently with its previous websites. If you search for a past Muslim Brotherhood website, you may find its domain unchanged and this leads to turning the pages into advertising pages. This deprives observers and researches of the chance to cast a peep to evaluate this experience. Development is acceptable but without scrapping older files which cost only a few dollars to be preserved. The websites that expired include the election campaign website of Dr. Makarem Al-Diary plus other websites like aldawaah.
 
More Muslim Brotherhood initiatives on cyberspace
 
Secondlife: The group has an island on Secondlife, www.secondlife.com, to show the group"s cultural project and it offered a special service for the military trial of the Muslim Brotherhood reformists.
Ikhwan.net/Wiki: http://www.ikhwan.net/wiki, a free encyclopedia on the Internet launched on September, 1st, 2008.
Ikhwantube: http://www.ikhwantube.com/, a website to that offers service of streaming video materials to achieve the website"s message of a safe surfing.
 
See also:

The Muslim Brotherhood blogging in Egypt
The Muslim Brotherhood blogging
The Muslim Brotherhood encyclopedia
Ikhwanonline
Ikhwanweb
Ikhwantube
Ensa blog
www.muslimbrotherhood.com

http://ashahed2000.tripod.com

 

 www.muslimbrotherhood.com
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