Discussing Islam

admin

1 Jan 2000

Appropriate Internet forums for

Discussing Islam

Newsgroups

Mailing lists

Web boards

Chat rooms / IRC channels

Newsgroups

Public forums with ongoing discussions on Islam and its relationship to other religions are

soc.religion.islam (moderated)

alt.religion.islam (unmoderated),

but the latter of these might not be available at your site, (since not all news servers carry groups in the alt.* hierarchy).

soc.culture.pakistan.religion and a number of other groups in the soc.culture.* hierarchy about countries with large Muslim populations might be a place to look. Religion and culture are interwoven. But usually it is better to focus exclusively religious discussions on the newsgroups specificially created for this purpose and listed above.

Web access to newsgroups (search, read & post):

DejaNews: "Search Newsgroups" and choose e.g. "soc.religion.islam" or go directly here (but for some strange reason, it doesn't always catch all the postings... click "next messages" a few times, it might give you some more of the most recent ones. The first link above, through your local newsserver should be the normal way to go.)

News2Web Gateway is a convenient read only page

Before you jump into discussions it might be good to have a look at the charter for the Islamic newsgroup and the frequently asked questions on soc.religion.islam in regard to this newsgroup. Search the web to find the FAQs of other newsgroups.

For some newsreaders it seems to be difficult to post to the moderated newsgroups since the posts have to first go to the moderator email address. Hence, if you want to post to the Islamic newsgroup soc.religion.islam, send your contribution via email to [email protected], [email protected] [using both makes it more certain that it arrives].

You might also want to have a look at the Christian newsgroups soc.religion.christian and soc.religion.christian.bible-study which discuss topics relevant to Christianity and other religions but the direct interaction with Islam is (sadly) relatively rare in these groups. FAQs are available for both soc.religion.christian and soc.religion.christian.bible-study.

The submission email address for soc.religion.christian is [email protected] and for soc.religion.christian.bible-study it is [email protected]

It is always good to think twice before hitting the deliver button and sending off a contribution to the newsgroups that will be read by thousands. But if you are having second thoughts, and urgently have to retract your contribution, here is the procedure how you might be able to undo it: CANCEL FAQ.

Mailing Lists

Muslim/Christian Dialog List (MCD): If your browser supports forms you can subscribe from this web based subscription form, or otherwise send email to [email protected] with only this line in the body of the email:

subscribe mcd

MCD has quite vigorous discussion by people who want to convince each other of truth. That makes it lively and interesting but sometimes it gets hot as well. If you would like to have a taste of what is discussed currently, have a look at the MCD Email archive.

The Bnai Avraham mailing list for Jewish - Christian - Muslim dialog at Seed House is a very friendly dialog list. It is understood that there is to be no proselytizing / evangelising on the list. You can subscribe to Bnai Abraham by sending email to [email protected] with this line only in the body

subscribe bnai-avraham [email protected]

Islamic Perspectives mailing list

ISLAM-L" (History of Islam) [moderated]: For subscription send an email to [email protected] with only the following line in the body of the message:

SUBscribe ISLAM-L your-full-name

This is not a religious debate list, but an academic forum (well, supposedly). Questions and statements allowed as far as they are relevant to the "History of Islam." ISLAM-L Web Archive

Adnan Khan has set up his own debate mailing list, called MCAD (Muslim, Christian, atheist/agnostic debate) for those who prefer a more hostile Christian bashing mode compared to the aim for dialog on the MCD list.