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Building an Islamic Website - Page 2

© A Abdullah

Creating an Islamic website is a big responsibility as you are basically teaching others about Islam and are responsible in front of Allah for what you teach. So be careful when giving advice and absolutely do not give fatawa unless you are qualified to do so. As the creator of Cyber-Muslima has so astutely recommended, resist the urge to become an "Insta-Scholar".

In addition, you may find yourself listing links to other Islamic web-sites on the internet. Instead of randomly listing links as so many tend to do, it seems much more responsible to take the time to visit each site that you list, check it out thoroughly and see if it is Islamically sound or not. Listing a few really good links is so much better than inadvertently listing hundreds of links which may be against mainstream Islamic teachings.

When you are faced with sites like this, you have to make a decision about how and if you are going to include them in your recommendations for Islamic sites. It is a very delicate balance....On the one hand, you do not want to give undue publicity to unworthy sites. But on the other hand, some of these sites are already very popular and the truth needs to be pointed out so people can make more informed decisions about what they view.

A friend and I faced this problem recently when constructing a Childrens' Page of Islamic websites. While researching what is available on the internet for Muslim children, we discovered that "Play and Learn" is by far the most well-known and well-publicized childrens' Islamic website on the internet. But this website promotes the Shi'aa belief, and this was not mentioned by many Muslims who have linked to "Play and Learn" from their own web-sites. Because of its overwhelming popularity, we thought that we should include "Play and Learn" on our list, but we also felt that it is a responsibilty to educate parents about the true nature of the site so they can visit it with open eyes, if they choose to do so at all.

There is nothing more frustrating than visiting a site with broken links. If you have taken the time to construct a web-site, it makes good sense to do some periodic maintenance on your site as well. Keep your links up-to-date by fixing broken ones and by deleting missing or obsolete ones. Hot Links is a site which can help you to do some of this maintenance.

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