Muxlim, a social network and community for Muslims, has announced that it is to launch a virtual world for its users in the next few weeks. Muxlim aims to provide a virtual world that is suitable to the cultural expectations of Muslim people and (in some cases) governments. It will not, for example, include sexual content and will provide opportunities to 'wear a hijab and go to prayer rooms'. This is in response to a ban on virtual worlds currently in place across the middle east, including in comparatively liberal countries such as the United Arab Emirates.
Does a separate virtual world for Muslims make sense? I think it probably does. The internet is often dominated by broadly American (and certainly western) culture, which of course takes its roots predominantly from Christianity rather than Islam. Assumptions which might be made perfectly reasonably by a US or British virtual world developer may significantly reduce that virtual world's value to users who do not consider themselves part of Western culture.
Second, the existence of flourishing Muslim communities outside the Middle East seems to demand a tool to join up all of these communities to facilitate the international Ummah – Muslim community. Whilst as a non-Muslim I have little feel for the extent to which this second factor would be a real driver of adoption, on an academic level at least the idea of using technology to enhance both cultural and religious connections between a worldwide community seems fascinating. And the size of the market is certainly not a problem, with over a billion adherents to the religion worldwide.
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