islamic

World politics intrude on Silicon Valley (again). After days of violence sparked by outrage over a video trailer mocking Islam's prophet, Google and its YouTube subsidiary are caught up in a controversy in which the options boil down to bad and worse.

A brief recap: Demonstrations erupted in the Middle East this week against "Innocence of Muslims," a YouTube clip denigrating Muhammad as a buffoonish, skirt-chasing molester. The video, originally uploaded to YouTube in July, was a trailer for a movie produced by a Southern California filmmaker named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. In the violent blowback that followed, … Read more

The White House has acknowledged pressuring Google over an amateur anti-Islam video that is legally protected under U.S. law.

Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council, told The Washington Post that the White House "reached out to YouTube to call the video to their attention and ask them to review whether it violates their terms of use."

A White House spokesman didn't immediately respond to questions from CNET asking for details, but any phone call to YouTube would be more politically symbolic than anything else. YouTube executives were not only well aware of the video … Read more

For Muslims, time, place, and direction are critical to worship. Accurate Times by the Jordanian Astronomical Society is the perfect tool for the task. This compact freeware calculates prayer time, sun time, direction, date, and other data with an accuracy of two seconds or less. It offers Arabic and English language options, accurate graphical displays, and some important extras.

Accurate Times has a simple, compact interface that is nicely configured, displaying our location and other data as well as the day's prayer times. The layout slightly resembles a telescope control panel, which (not surprisingly) it is, in a way, … Read more

Daily Islam by Umar Sheikh is a free Google Chrome extension that displays a verse from the Quran and another from the Hadith when you click its toolbar icon. It has two operational modes: Daily, which provides a new pair or verses for each day; and Random, which displays new verses every time you click the icon.

Daily Islam installs easily, like all Chrome extensions. It placed minaret-shaped icon on a green background in our Chrome toolbar. We clicked it, and a pop-up window appeared near the icon with verses from the Quran and Hadith. Each verse had a small … Read more

Bangladesh has joined Pakistan in blocking access to Facebook, citing a page on the social-networking site that called on people to draw images of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, the Associated Press reported.

Bangladesh's chief telecommunications regulator, Zia Ahmed, told the news agency that the government had asked local Internet service providers to temporarily block Facebook pending removal of a page publicizing "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day."

The page was created after the producers of animated TV series "South Park" said that the Comedy Central network had censored an episode of the show that satirized religious prohibition … Read more

The Athan Software reminds users of the five daily Islamic calls to prayer. Although the program is nicely designed, it has some functional problems that made it difficult to use.

The program's interface is intuitive, with its functions arranged neatly with buttons. We had no trouble figuring out how to configure the program; everything was quite obvious. The program's built-in Help file gives a clear explanation of its features, but unfortunately, it offered no troubleshooting tips for when things don't go as planned.

The problem that we encountered was with defining our location. The program has a … Read more

Network Solutions has suspended a Web site that a Dutch lawmaker was using to promote a yet-to-be-released film critical of Islam.

The Web hosting service said it is investigating whether content on the site--Fitnathemovie.com--is in violation of the hosting service's acceptable use policy.

The 15-minute movie, called Fitna--an Arabic word that means "test of faith in times of trial"--describes Islam as "the enemy of freedom," according to comments made by Geert Wilders, a Dutch lawmaker and the film's maker. Dutch officials fear the movie could spark violence, as happened after … Read more

Hang up, or else. That's the Taliban's message to cell phone companies operating in Afghanistan, whom it suspects of collaborating with NATO to track down its forces.

The displaced theocrats have given the four mobile phone operators in Afghanistan three days to shut down at night--roughly 14 hours a day--or face attacks against their offices and towers, according to Reuters.

The Taliban is convinced the Americans are using mobile phone signals to track down its remaining troops. "Since the occupying forces stationed in Afghanistan usually at night use mobile phones for espionage to track down the mujahideen, … Read more

When creating a broad forum or social-networking site like Facebook, deciding what, if any, content should be prohibited is always a difficult decision. Pornography and unauthorized copyrighted material are usually forbidden, but any other restrictions will often spark calls of censorship and accusations that the forum infringes on the freedom of speech guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. In reality, the constitution doesn't dictate what must be allowed in these circumstances, just as you are permitted to make certain subjects off-limits in your own home. Despite the fact that there is no constitutional issue, there is a perception of one, and the concerns about censorship are very real and do have merit.

Lately, Facebook has been dealing with a growing controversy surrounding one of its groups. F**k Islam has more than 800 members, has generated almost 20,000 wall posts, and sparked a number of similar groups in addition to a host of groups built around their opposition to the group's existence. The debate has recently spilled into The New York Times.… Read more