Islam Q&A (aka Islam Question & Answer) is an

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

ic academic, educational,

da'wah ' (, , "invitation", also spelt , , , or ) is the act of inviting people to Islam. The plural is () or (). Preachers who engage in dawah are known as da'i. Etymology literally means "issuing a summons" or "making an invitation". Grammat ...

website which aims to offer advice and academic answers to questions about

based on evidence from

Islamic Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

religious texts in an adequate and easy-to- understand manner. It was founded by and operates under the general supervision of Muhammad Saalih Al-Munajjid, who is a

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

n-born

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

- Saudi Islamic scholar.

History

The service was one of the first online ''

fatwa A fatwa (; ; ; ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (sharia) given by a qualified Islamic jurist ('' faqih'') in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a ''mufti'', ...

'' services, if not the first. The launching of IslamQA.info in 1996 by Muhammad Saalih Al-Munajjid marked the beginning of an attempt to answer questions according to the Sunni interpretation of the

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

and

Hadith Hadith is the Arabic word for a 'report' or an 'account f an event and refers to the Islamic oral tradition of anecdotes containing the purported words, actions, and the silent approvals of the Islamic prophet Muhammad or his immediate circle ...

. The website states that "All questions and answers on this site have been prepared, approved, revised, edited, amended or annotated by Shaykh Muhammad Saalih al-Munajjid, the supervisor of this site."

Popularity

According to the website Similarweb, islamqa.info had 10.1 million visits in January 2022, down from 13.66 million visits in March 2021, similar to 10 million visits per month in October and November 2020. Similarweb ranked islamqa 205th in the world in the category of "Community and Society > Faith and Beliefs" websites in January 2022, down from sixth in the world in the category in March 2021. While it was the highest ranking Islamic website in March 2021, as of January 2022 it ranks behind Islamweb.net at 17.2 million visits. Alexa rated it as the 8157th most popular website globally, 3 March 2022; 7,612th in "global engagement", 15 March 2022.

IslamQA is available in 16 languages, including English, Arabic,

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

, Turkish, German, Bangla, Chinese, Russian, French, and Spanish, the website provides

fatawa A fatwa (; ; ; ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (sharia) given by a qualified Islamic jurist ('' faqih'') in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a ''mufti'', ...

covering basic tenets of faith, etiquette and morals, Islamic history, and Islamic politics. The site describes itself in the following manner: The site's vision is to be "an encyclopaedia about Islam". Its aims (as described on the website) are:

Methodology

The site describes its methodology as such:

Controversy in Saudi Arabia

The website was banned in

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

because it was issuing independent ''fatwas''. In Saudi Arabia, the kingdom's Council of Senior Scholars has the sole responsibility for issuing ''fatwas''. The council was granted this exclusive authority to issue ''fatwas'' by a royal edict issued in August 2010 (while restrictions had been in place since 2005, they were seldom enforced); this move was described by Christopher Boucek as "the latest example of how the state is working to assert its primacy over the country's religious establishment."Christopher Boucek
"Saudi Fatwa Restrictions and the State-Clerical Relationship,"
''

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a nonpartisan international affairs think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C., with operations in Europe, South Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East, as well as the United States. Foun ...

'', October 27, 2010 (accessed November 18, 2013).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:IslamQA.info Islamic political websites Internet properties established in 1997 Fatwas Saudi Arabian websites Salafi movement Multilingual websites