Cairo's 1,000-Year-Old Islamic School Embraces Digital Revolution

The La Mezquita Mosque in the community of Al Andalus in Second Life is one of many digital culture Muslim awareness outposts.

The Times Online is reporting that Egypt's oldest Islamic university Al-Azhar, is attempting to combat extremism by introducing English-language teaching and digital education. Al-Azhar is "determined to stop extremists hijacking their religion and exacerbating religious tensions." It's a project in partnership with the British Council.

The British Council has begun a programme to send teachers to Al-Azhar to teach Muslim scholars English and give them vital access to the internet and to the millions of Muslims who speak English. The aim is to help Al-Azhar, which has been training Islamic scholars for more than 1,000 years, to promote an accurate global understanding of Islam.

We chronicled and facilitated the entrance of American University in Cairo, which is not a Muslim university, into the virtual world of Second Life. The Muslim website IslamOnline.net, which was featured in our Digital Diplomacy report is another prominent website that has explored digital outreach as a way of creating dialog around Islam.

[The cradle of Islamic scholarship embraces the digital revolution]