When did the Internet become an important networking tool in Islam?
It is common to suggest that 9/11 had a galvanizing effect on online Muslim discourse, but — while that is a significant milestone — in some contexts the Internet was already an important adjunct to the Islamic information flow following the development of early browsers in the mid 1990s. Until the beginning of the twenty first century, online Islamic communication had remained largely in the hands of an educated, English speaking elite — many of whom were based in North American and European universities. The emergence of Arabic and other software tools certainly increased the significance of the Internet in Islam. The medium’s adoption by important centers of Islamic learning, such as Qom and al-Azhar, which invested considerable resources into online activities, represented another networking milestone. The recognition by groups and individual scholars that, through online discourse, reputations could be built (or lost) and new networks established led to a sustained expansion in
