The Muslim Brotherhood (known in Arabic as "al-Ikhwan") is engaged in a rather curious project to duplicate some of the world's most popular websites with its own "Ikhwan" versions.

So far, these include Ikhwan Wiki (resembling Wikipedia), Ikhwan Tube and Ikhwan Web Tube (YouTube lookalikes), Ikhwan Google(which searches the Brotherhood's websites) and – the latest addition – IkhwanBook which resembles Facebook.

The interesting and slightly puzzling question is what the Brotherhood hopes to achieve by this. It's hard to imagine the Ikhwan sites gaining anything like the popularity of those they replicate, and they look like a move towards exclusivity which is generally uncharacteristic of the Brotherhood. Writing in The National, Matt Bradley says:

Given the Brotherhood’s goals of recruiting new members and popularising its relatively moderate conception of political Islam, the new site seems somewhat counter-intuitive, say some of the movement’s followers and observers. With a subscriber base that exceeds the population of most large countries, Facebook should be the perfect platform for propagating ideas and attracting adherents.

But defenders of the site say they envision IkhwanBook as a complementary parallel – not a replacement – for Facebook. The organisation, members say, wants a social networking site of its own that can be tailored to its unique need for privacy, security and decency.

The paper quotes Mosab Ragab, a 22-year-old Brotherhood member, who is sceptical about it:

"When I think today that I am calling people who are frequenting the internet to real Islam, I’ll also study where they are, what are the places they go to. I will not establish a site or a place for myself and say ‘OK, here I am. Whoever wants to find my ideas they can come to my place.’ I find where those people are and I go to them."

The article adds:

Mr Ragab described IkhwanBook as technically "weak" because it relies on an open-source version of the original Facebook software rather than the company’s more advanced proprietary version. 

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 2 July 2010.