Winning The War of Ideas

Empowering Moderate Muslim in the fight against terrorism

The International Quranic Center, a 501c3 committed to articulating a vision of Islam as an inclusive and peaceful religion has established a website -- Ahl-alquran website (www.ahl-alquran.com ) -- that has become a serious participant in the international debate about the future of Islam. IQC is the platform lead by Sheikh Ahmed Subhy Mansour, whose articulation of the Koran and writings have become the foundations of an enlightened view of Islam and its role in the religions of the world.   IQC proposes to enlarge its Internet presence by enhancing its content by institutionalizing its support system and providing necessary administrative and technical support.

1. Background:

This proposal aims to address the importance of supporting Muslim moderates in their struggle against the Wahabists monopoly over the Internet in the Muslim world. The majority of the Moslem people are left to the dominating influence of Aljazeera and other media institutions that promote fanatic ideas and hostility towards the west. This is not only taking place through satellite, but also through the internet. According to Alexa.com (the world largest ranking website engine) Aljazeera website is the first and the most read website over the Muslim world particularly, and among the first 500 websites all over the world generally. Furthermore, Islam online, the sister website, is among the first 800 in traffic rank over the internet. Both websites provide constant support for the Wahabi tradition and its militant leaders, by ideologically supporting their jihadist crusade in Iraq and elsewhere.

According to the heritage of these websites, Westerners and followers of other religions are infidels and should be fought and subjugated to Islam. They live in the “land of war” as Ibn Laden explains. Alqaradawi, the famous fanatic Sheikh who supervises Islam online website and also has stakes in Aljazeera, issued a fatwa indicating that killing American Civilians is Iraq is a religious duty for every and each living Muslim[1]. Furthermore, he said that killing all Jews in Palestine, including civilians, is also a divine obligation.[2]. He even issued the same fatwa in support for Hezbollah in Lebanon against Israel.[3]

On the other hand, the United States, the wealthiest nation in the world, is losing the “war of Ideas” against terrorism, according to the former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld himself. The United States, who has previously managed to win the cold war against the Soviet Union through media and propaganda, is losing miserably in this encounter. The reason for that is that Americans lack the ideological, cultural, and historical backgrounds of the Wahabists terrorism phenomena. They are unable to reach out for Muslims through their own

1. Objectives of the project:

1. Supporting Muslim Moderates: Ahl-alquran website (www.ahl-alquran.com ) is the official gate of the international Quranic Center. It was created in Sep. 2006 as a platform that gathers the moderate Muslim scholars around the globe to interact, discuss, and deliberate. Even though the website is currently being administrated on voluntary basis, the website developers and editors have managed to sustain constant feeds to the visitors.
2. Sponsoring dialogue between religions: The International Quranic Center and its website contributors include followers of Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
3. Educating Americans about true Islam and Informing activists, scholars and policy makers everywhere about true Islam, and how best to promote it to encounter terrorism.

1. Program Approach

Ahl Alquran website was established in 2006 to comprise a worldwide network of Muslim reformers who are dedicated to fighting terrorism ideologically by analyzing their literature and showing its contradiction to the letter and spirit of the Quran. The founder of the center, Dr. Mansour, is an internationally respected and distinguished scholar of the Quran with expertise in Islamic history, culture, theology and politics.  His interpretation of Islam offers a fact-based understanding of the letter and spirit of the Quran and its systematic application in a manner that enhances the values of democracy and religious tolerance.  IQC is governed by an interfaith Board of directors including people of various faiths including Muslims, Christians and Jews.  The chairman of the Board of Directors is Jewish, the President is a Muslim, and the Vice President is Coptic.

The website is launched in Arabic and English. It has more than 100 writers, 1000 registered users, and thousands of daily visitors. It has sections for news, polls, discussions, comments, articles, books, and Fatwas.  In order for the website to meet its growing international obligations and to enhance the role of the Moderate Islam, it needs to move from being a mainly volunteer enterprise into being a sufficiently financed organization which does not live from month to month.  This proposal describes the minimum financial support necessary to continue its development into a program built on a firm foundation. 

1. Program’s Activities:

      In order to achieve the project’s goals, crucial steps have to be made to promote the website. Full time professional administrator, who would be devoted to manage the website operations on daily basis, and full marketing strategy, has to be implemented, including the following steps:

1. Developing weekly an HTML Email bulletin to reach out for thousands of subscribers around the globe.
2. Recruiting established, will known, writers to attract more readers.
3. Opening new specialized sections.
4. Providing questionnaires and online consultations for readers.

V. Program Evaluation:

Achieving the project’s goals can be measured through the website development, which can be evaluated through:

• Number of new users and writers who constantly use the website
• Number of visits and page hits made to the website
• Constant update of materials to the website
• Number of subscribers to the weekly bulletin
• Number of comments and replies for questions made by visitors
• Quality and Quantity of citations  by other publications
• Interviews of President by other media

VI. Tentative Budget:

• Website editor: $50,000 annually
• Website Administrator: $45.000 annually
• Remuneration for 20 selected writers: $1.000 per month equals $240.000 per year
• FICA and Benefits for Employees - $27,000
• Website Annual Hosting and Domain Fees: $330
• Email Campaigning Annual Service Fees: $ 670

Total Annual Cost: $ 363.000