Islam and Muslims in Second Life

LOL! No offense mate, but calling peoples opinions nonsense, facile and schoolyard bullshit and saying to not comment if we don't like it *is* emotive and volatile...

No one has given a viewpoint on Islam... and already you're blowing us up. If you want the string, you would have to be able to cope with various viewpoints on it. Some you may not like. From what I have seen so far, I don't think you could.


The reason it has gathered warnings from people that is is flammable is because, as a few have said, it is.

Anyway, it's a survey, they seem to be banned.

oh the silence is killing me...

No, you got it wrong because of your pretentious attitude; don't try to bluster your way out of it.

This, in a thread where you are attempting to argue for tolerance! May I point out that LL's Community Standards include a specific proscription of racial intolerance, and that I have already succesfully ARd someone recently (and obtained a retraction and received an apology) who presumed that insulting the Welsh in these forums was acceptable behaviour. You may wish to consider your language in future.

Pep (Live by the sword, die by the sword)

You've never been slow to give offence, Boyo.

Now go AR my ass, you Welsh git.

Censure, in the sense of harshly criticize, rebuke or condemn. How do you know he didn't mean that?

The flame war begins, and look who's holding the matches.

Because it doesn't make sense in context, whereas censor does.

Pep (I thought you were one of the more literate posters Kelli?)

Beggin yore pardon, Miss, but 'censor' don't make no sense in contex neither.

I'm just curious how to define the grids direction for the muslim prayer (avatar) that he/she is facing to mecca because thats one of the rules to make it a valid worship.

And i agree that this topic is an invite for flames.
I'm not sure what Marie declares as 'Islamophobia' but i think if its about refusals or criticism the islamic faith its wrong to compare it to a disease.

Wouldn't logic dictate the av should face the same direction on the map as the devotee would in RL? After all, the av is not actually the one who would be praying: it's effectively just a projection of the account owner's behaviour in this context. There could be many reasons why someone might wish to emulate RL behaviour such as praying in SL or even drinking a cup of tea but the emulation of the activity is not actually the activity in itself. It is just a simile with potentially creative benefit for the account holder in the same way that any virtual activity might have.


A 'phobia' is literally a fear and the suffix is applied variously to describe certain states of mind, which are not diseases. As such, the term 'islamophobia' makes no comparisons with a disease but it is a perfectly appropriate, though ugly, word because it sums up a common enough prejudice against İslam and Muslim people very well.

Will someone please explain exactly how the OP is an invitation to flaming?

Ephraim....

That was one of Marie's questions:

And as the prayer has to face the Kaaba in Mecca a worship in SL won't replace a RL pray.

It wasnt asked for the meaning of a 'phobia' but for Maries declaration of 'Islamophobia'. Got the difference?

No one in the world can determine whose prayer is real. However, in Islam praying, you have to actually move, go wash up and then start praying and recite quran verses, and the standing and bowing is all part of it. In SL are you actually doing the standing and the bowing and facing the Qibla and all of that ?
I also said "in my opinion" it is not considered real praying, I did not say that it is definitely not real, I just simply gave my opinion, isn't that the point of the survey ?

Yep. I was offering my two-cents-worth to the discussion of that point since you raised it: the grid's actual direction is an abstraction, just as everything our avatars do on it - including rezzing the avatar itself. The relationship between RL individuals and the behaviour of their avatars in SL is an endless source of fascination to me for that very reason.

For the record, I am not a Muslim, although I live in a predominantly Muslim society. As such, I am interested in constructive discussion of the OP and I don't see why the subject should be greeted with a good deal of whining about flames.


She asked a simple enough question about encountering islamophobia within SL but you made a point of inferring the comparison with a disease:


I was clarifying problems with your inference not the OP's question since she was not in any way likening a fear of İslam to a disease. A phobia is an irrational fear and since prejudice is more often than not based on ignorance, refusals or criticisms drawn from ignorance are aptly described as irrational fears or phobias.

By her use of the term, it is fair to say the OP was only enquiring if any practicing Muslims had encountered prejudice within SL. She was not implying that the perpetrators of such prejudice might be suffering from a disease by her use of the term 'islamophobia'.

Technically she could have used 'anti-semitism' since as many Muslims as Jews are of semitic descent but common usage of the term describes a particular prejudice against Jews. Consequently it would have been foolish of her to do so, just as it is foolish to nitpick her use of the term she chose.

Have you got the difference?

Not always.

Pep (It can be an "extreme" fear, which can be entirely rational.)

Offence? Not on the basis of "race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation".

Pep (quoted from the Community Standards)

Thats right, Pep.
And thats the point. Islamophobia just seems to be a phrase used as pseudo argument against islam critical voices. To compare that being a phobia/disease will be still wrong then.

I think the answer to that may rest with the degree of fundamentalism of the observer. For example: could a paralyzed man pray in a manner acceptable to Islam?

So, there are those who say no, because he cannot perform the required physical actions, and those who say yes, because prayer occurs in the mind, or because a person could use SL or some other medium to perform those physically impossible actions. It's a question requiring an answer with a degree of subjectiveness.

Yeah right. I've noticed you have especially balanced opinions on issues of gender.


Get real, Rev. There is nothing essentially wrong with any term that describes prejudice or the use of that term to inquire about the issue. We make free use of words like homophobia, anti-semitism, racism and so on where necessary: are you suggesting that such prejudices are "pseudo" arguments too?

Perhaps it might be more constructive to expand on your evident problems with İslam* than to faff around with wooly-headed whinging about the use of a word?

*I am, of course, inferring that you are one of those "islam critical" voices. Otherwise why did you make an issue of the OP's phrasing?

Observations not opinions.

Pep (wonders how it's relevant anyway when there are no guarantees about anyone's actual gender in sl)

Oh right! So I guess I don't have any guarantees of your actual nationality either.

In which case, you mind if I reassert my *opinion* that you're a Welsh git?

I could be wrong, of course, but I doubt it.

The difference is that you aren't being discriminatory and intolerant of me, whether I am Welsh or not . . .

Pep ( . . . you are being insulting to an ethnic group)

I hadn't thought of that, Ghosty. I think probably that for me, personally, the amount with which the user identifies to the avatar has a big impact. If the avatar is just "a little bunch of pixels" that runs through some "praying" animations, then it's not actually praying. If the user highly identifies with the avatar ("I AM my avatar... my avatar IS me" and goes through the motions, then it might be considered prayer. I would be a little worried that the user is too caught up in watching his avatar pray to actually concentrate on the act of prayer itself. It's tough!

This. Since I don't role play, at all, ever, I forget that some do, and could just as easily role play prayer as anything else. If I was praying in SL it would be me, praying, just as it is in RL. It's something I wouldn't fool around with, otherwise, why do it at all. I say all this because I have prayed, in SL, at church, and also memory gardens. I consider them real prayers because the rl *I* was praying at the time, the avatar was just a prop.

True, SL and other virutal environments have an immersive quality to them. At least, it's very hard for me to concentrate on RL activities when my avatar is doing whatever it is I told it to do in the virual world and not become distracted by it.

More to the issue, I'm not strictly familiar with the dictates of Islam when it comes to what is, or is not, acceptable prayer, and that's where the rubber meets the road. If a person is using the avatar to take care of the physical needs of the ritual, while performing the mental parts himself, that could lead to the subjectivity I mentioned.

Um.. Why do you presume that?

Apparently Ephraim is not one of those who are offended by controversy.