The Middle East Interfaith Blogger Network

by Esra'a (Bahrain)

Like I said on my previous entry, we hope to launch the ME Faith site soon. We are still working on the layout and main content. The programming is almost done, thanks to Sankar.

It would be nice if you can suggest a list of relevant blogs that we can include in our aggregator. Here are some topics we hope to cover:

- The Baha’i minority in Iran
- Christians of the Middle East
- Egyptian Copts
- Berbers of Algeria and Morocco
- Hinduism in Arab states
- The Druze in Israel, Syria, and Lebanon
- Jews in Iran
- Jewish exodus from Arab lands
- Arab Jews
- Muslims in Israel
- The Shi’ite/Sunni conflicts in Iraq (and Bahrain)

We also hope to cover about the Kurds in Syria, Turkey, and Iraq.

Here’s our manifesto (thanks to Jesse and Esther):

Silent no longer!

The blogosphere is the Middle East’s newest community: a powerful alternative communication network largely (though not entirely) beyond the reach of censors. It gives voice to a heretofore silent minority of people seeking dialogue and understanding. Who knows? Through our efforts we might find that the silent minority is larger and stronger than we now believe.
We represent diverse members of that community. Despite our differences, we come together to protect individual rights and freedom of conscience.

Through blogging, we are free to express our beliefs online and share them with the world in a way that is not possible otherwise. We cherish our right to free expression and freedom of conscience. As individuals with ties to the Middle East, we are pained by ongoing repression and conflict in the region, troubles fueled in part by religious differences and in part by a fundamental lack of communication.

Together, we are committed to helping Middle Eastern societies find a formula for genuine acceptance of difference. We ask the blogging community to provide an open environment for interfaith dialogue and education – and to help us transform online dialogue into local interfaith efforts in our own communities.

We establish the Middle East Interfaith Blogger Network to put our ideas into action. We intend to celebrate difference, to encourage discussion and learning, to recognize outstanding blog writing on interfaith issues, and to promote grassroots interfaith activism in our local communities.

The Middle East Interfaith Blogger Network is guided by the following principles:

• Our dialogue will de just that: a dialogue with give and take.
• Our dialogue will not be an excuse to advance political agendas, but rather an opportunity to discuss faith.
• We will try to avoid generalizations, recognizing the diversity of interpretation within each tradition, as well as the differences that exist between religions.
• Our dialogue is open to the range of religions represented in the Middle East, including growing populations of Hindus and Buddhists, as well as Bahai’is.

We will also be including interfaith calendars and events. If you know any good sources for such information, please post them here so that we can link to them through the site.

I’d like to thank Marwa for all of her contributions for this project, as well as the effort she put into writing a glossary for Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, and all the time she put into interviewing priests in Bahrain. We will hopefully be working with Discover Islam in order to find out even more information about such things, and this summer we hope to organize our very first interfaith event in Bahrain. We’d like to see this project expand.

If anyone is interested in being involved with the website, contact us.