The Virtual Community

Abstract

The primary producers and consumers of Internet-based Islam are Muslims living in the United States. Exact statistics are always difficult to come by in anything having to do with the World Wide Web; nonetheless, a 2001 report by the United Nations estimates that less than 1 percent of the Arab-Muslim world uses the Internet, whereas over 50 percent of the population in the United States and Europe go on-line.1 This statistic indicates that Western Muslims are the primary producers and consumers of what can be termed “Virtual Islam.” The development of virtual Islam is closely tied to a specific socio-professional milieu of technicians and software engineers. These members of the educated classes are the primary producers and consumers of Islamic websites. The virtual Ummah of the Internet, therefore, is largely restricted to a group of people possessed of cultural capital and technological knowledge, bound together by a class-based solidarity that transcends countries and cultures