| WikiIslam | |
| Logo Alt: | WikiIslam's logo |
| Founder: | Ali Sina |
| Owner: | Ex-Muslims of North America |
| Current Status: | Active |
| Content License: | CC BY-NC 3.0 |
WikiIslam is an anti-Muslim and anti-Islam wiki. The website was founded by Ali Sina in 2006. Registered users may modify and edit its content; in 2015, the website was acquired by the Ex-Muslims of North America[1] and underwent a major revision in 2020.[2]
The website was registered on October 27, 2005 and launched on September 4, 2006. It was founded by Ali Sina, an Iranian-born Canadian ex-Muslim, and originally maintained by his organization, Faith Freedom International, part of the counter-jihad network.[3] As of 2013, among the site's aim was to act in defence against a perceived "global threat" of Muslims and Islam; the site described its purpose as "collect[ing] facts relating to the criticism of Islam from valid Islamic sources" without the effect of "[politically correct] censorship" that is common in Wikipedia.[4] It rejected concerns of Islamophobia by arguing that Islam has been proved to be a "dangerous ideology".
As a "community-edited website", the wiki was set to be edited and modified by (registered) approved netizens., information on (alleged) internal contradictions in the Quran, persecution of non-Muslims and ex-Muslims, follies of Muhammad etc. were held; a narrow focus is maintained on "violence, sexuality and gender conflicts". Also as of 2018, apostasy testimonies were featured too and the site held a list of 101 provocative questions which are to be asked of any Muslim to prove that Islam is not a "true religion," running in tune with the site's active encouragement to criticize Muslims. The same year, WikiIslam was noted to feature slurs about Muhammad.[5] Translations of content into multiple languages are available. In December 2015, the Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA), a secularist organization, took ownership and operation of the site.
Around 2020, a major revision to WikiIslam took place with a stated aim to "provide accurate and accessible information from traditional and critical perspectives” on Islam, and stressing a "zero-tolerance policy on hateful, misleading, unencyclopedic, and polemical content." As of 2022, WikiIslam did not "meet all the requirements stated in their own vision document," although some content was in line with the new vision. Articles generally presented how Muslim scholars have addressed specific "questions or episodes in the history of Islam"; internal variations and differences among Muslim scholars are also "often presented." However, there is "seldom (if ever)" content that includes modern discussions or "progressive interpretations." In addition, there was a bias in the selection of topics covered on the website, some of which explicitly or implicitly linked Muslims with a non-rational worldview that is incompatible with a scientific outlook, and often tended to cast them or Islam in a negative light when voices of contemporary scholars or contextualisation of debates were lacking. WikiIslam continues to have "hardly any information that presents Muslims in a positive or neutral way."
In 2007, Göran Larsson, Professor of Religious Studies at University of Gothenburg, argued that WikiIslam is an Islamophobic web portal and that the stories on WikiIslam were selected only to show that Muslims are "ignorant, backward or even stupid". In a 2014 survey of "anti-Muslim websites", Larsson profiled WikiIslam's apparent aim as "present[ing] Islamic history, theology and practitioners in a way which leaves the reader with an exceedingly negative image of the faith". He repeated his position in 2018, citing WikiIslam as an example of an "anti-Muslim webpage."
In 2013, Daniel Enstedt and Larsson wrote that the website has been "often perceived as being anti-Muslim, if not Islamophobic," describing the then-present content on WikiIslam as part of a "negative and biased" representation of Islam that could "easily be turned into an important weapon in the hands of those who want to express anti-Muslim feelings"; the site propagated "an Islamophobic world view that present[ed] Islam and Muslims as diametrically opposite to all others." Both Enstedt and Larrson have contended WikiIslam's selection and presentation of Islamic topics to be "very one-dimensional" with "alternative interpretations [by Muslim theologians] seldom represented".
In 2019, Asma Uddin, an advisor on religious liberty to the OSCE and a fellow at the Aspen Institute,[6] reiterated WikiIslam to be a "rampantly anti-Muslim website". The same year, Syaza Shukri, Professor of Political Sciences at International Islamic University Malaysia, deemed the lack of positive content on WikiIslam to demonstrate a "definite agenda": the promotion of a monolithic version of Islam—violent, oppressive, and unrepresentative of "how a majority of Muslims view their religion".[7] Rabia Kamal, a cultural anthropologist based at University of San Francisco, finds WikiIslam to be of the many Islamophobic websites dedicated to "surveillance" of Islam and Muslims.[8]
In 2023, a content analysis of WikiIslam by Edin Kozaric of Oslo Metropolitan University and Torkel Brekke, Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, was published following what the researchers described as "a serious effort to reinvent itself as a scientific, neutral, and unbiased website in several ways." Analysing how external websites had cited WikiIslam over many years, the researchers concluded that its articles had been "used to give legitimacy to arguments made on other websites, many of which contain Islamophobic messaging." Their analysis of the most widely disseminated WikiIslam articles found them "largely selective when it comes to topics covered, and to some extent selective in the choice of references." Some of the articles "could be said to espouse attitudes that are Islamophobic", though they noted "at the same time it is also important to underline that the articles often present alternative and conflicting opinions about the topics that are discussed." Kozaric and Brekke's overall impression of WikiIslam was that the information presented about Islam was "far from neutral"; their main concern was that "WikiIslam presents itself as an encyclopedic and scientific site without a political agenda and that it does not critically reflect upon how it can be used for serving other interests."