Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds: Muxlim

Rose Springvale, the sultana of the experimental Islamic community Al Andalus in Second Life, is a Methodist from Indiana who is now an attorney in Texas.

UPDATE: Muxlim Pal's virtual world component appears to have been temporarily shut down because of griefers. We had signed up for the beta, but were unable to access the virtual world component. I haven't gotten any updates yet about the nature of the griefing. Anybody know?

Tish Shute (@ugotrade) tweeted to ask me if we were planning to blog about Muxlim, a new virtual world for Muslims but without the charged atmosphere of Second Life.

Just this week, we finished the final drafts for our machinima video, graphic book and policy recommendation report for the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project. Originally, the plan was to host a series of events in Second Life to discuss Islam. While conducting initial research for the project, however, we realized that the Muslim population across the virtual world of the Internet (and in particular, the immersive three-dimensional user-created platform Second Life) was already creating a compelling narrative about what it means to be Muslim in 2008. They pulled us into their stories, and in documenting this intriguing new dimension in the global culture, we created a story of our own. Reuters pulled out of Second Life recently, ostensibly due to a lack of material, but this project ended up being the most surprising investigation of my career. Every time we thought we might be finished, some compelling new individual or group arose, or news broke of yet another related story. Muslim culture is thriving on the Internet.

Mahdis Keshavarz of the MAKE Agency, a public relations firm focused on the Middle East, was one of the many Muslims we interviewed in the physical world across four continents while working on this project. She was introduced to us by DJ Spooky, whom we met over sushi with Cory Doctorow and Jeff Newelt in NYC. When Jeff handed me a stack of graphic novels I realized that the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project needed a graphic report. I don't believe in coincidences, but Mahdis Keshavarz, who was fasting for Ramadan the day we met her in Brooklyn, is quoted in this article about Muxlim:

"One of the benefits of the Internet in the Muslim world, which is a generally closed society, is this ability to interact and connect in a way that isn't improper," she said. "It means that people in more secular societies are in contact with the more traditional, planting new ideas in places where that exposure hasn't traditionally existed."

This idea is at the heart of what we discovered, which is that three-dimensional digital environments are creating new discussions. I became fascinated by Second Life instantly when I met a Muslim woman in a virtual Jewish synagogue and she told me she'd wanted to attend prayer services all her life but feared persecution or making others uncomfortable.

A platform inhabited by people with diverse beliefs means that different individuals and cultures have a chance to shine and transform in unexpected ways. This is the value of a platform like Second Life, where people are often segregated by language or custom--but not always. And it is in those moments of unexpected overlap where transformation occurs.

The deepening from two dimensions to three in the digital Muslim culture is arriving at the perfect time, which we cover in our policy recommendation report. But here's an example from The Los Angeles Times, on September 19, 2008, Jeffrey Fleishman’s article, "Facebook Reflects Growing Struggle Over Islam's Role."

"His fingers tapping like a tiny army over laptop keys, Waleed Korayem, a university student," Fleischman wrote, "skims the Internet in a noisy cafe and opens his Facebook group, the one that drives Islamists into fits of rage: Yeah, We Are Seculars and We Are Proud!"

Fleischman reported that the student was sweating as he clicked through "cyberspace venom and passionate screeds," of Muslims debating Islam and democracy in the Middle East. This electronic "parallel world," he wrote has "given young Muslims a voice beyond their mosques and repressive governments."

“This is not just a technical war, but a moral one," Korayem told Fleishman. "Facebook is reflecting what's happening in Muslim society. I'm engaged in dialogue between Islamists and secularists. But there's too much tension. No one wants to revise his opinions. It's turned into a screaming war."

Korayem, Fleischman wrote, "believes he's living in a transformative time in Islamic history, when a new generation can express whatever it wants on screens that can hold infinite numbers of words. It's exciting, but he wonders where it's going. Is it chatter and discourse in a vacuum, provocative but not powerful enough to overturn oppressive governments or contemporize religious thought?"

Unlike two dimensional platforms, virtual worlds include--but are not limited to--dialogue. Participants can interact in real time, across language barriers, to discuss and explore critical issues. I strongly believe that peace is not the absence of conflict, and that the pain of opposing views is in large part what drives human progress. Violence is an escalation of conflict, not a certain result. The fact that the Internet provides a venue for such conversations is a cause for hope and a source of new energy. As millions of Muslims become immersed in virtual environments, I believe that the addition of a third dimension is a powerful medium for a culture that is richly steeped in the narrative tradition. Writing was invented in ancient Mesopotamia, which is now present-day Iraq. This is one of the many adventures included in our study, along with a virtual hajj to Mecca, attendance at a Second Life fatwa with a Muslim scholar and residence in an experimental virtual Islamic community. We had experiences in the virtual world with people that simply would not have taken place in the physical world (this essay provides an example).

Any platform that offers an opportunity to virtually explore what it means to be Muslim in the word today is beneficial for many reasons, not the least of which being that it offers a physically safe environment in which to have sensitive discussions about difficult subjects as well as a chance to share thoughts, ideas and events with other people, Muslim or not, all around the physical world in real time. Virtual worlds allow people to create something together and in so doing, to find the more nuanced and deeper connections. I look forward to learning more about Muxlim, but in the meantime just wanted to respond to Tish's question: yes, we will blog about it! I don't agree to the contrast presented in the Fox News coverage regarding perceived "constant partying" in Second Life, because the only time I ever saw people who self-identified as Muslim "partying" was when I attended a group for women at a housewarming party.

We are in the process right now of planning a mixed reality launch for Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds (as well as creating a Virtual Newsroom for the American University in Cairo for a January 12 live webcast..details to follow, but save the date, and please register for live events at DIP) We look forward to sharing news with all of you soon...