Faith Freedom International

Faith Freedom International (FFI) is a website that is critical of Islam.[1] FFI identifies itself as "a grassroots worldwide movement of ex-Muslims and all those who are concerned about the rise of the Islamic threat". According to the website, FFI was founded by an Iranian residing in Canada, known as Ali Sina. On the website, Ali Sina has issued a standing challenge that he will remove the FFI website if proven wrong on a number of issues.

Faith Freedom International
Screenshot of FFI
Type of site
Anti-Islam
Available inEnglish, Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Polish, Spanish
OwnerAli Sina
Created byAli Sina
RevenueDonations
URLhttp://www.faithfreedom.org
CommercialNo
RegistrationeNom, Inc. (R39-LROR)
LaunchedOctober 26, 2001

FFI is listed by Richard Dawkins in the Appendix of his book, The God Delusion, as one of the few Islamic related "friendly address[es], for individuals needing support in escaping from religion"[2] (although it was removed from the website following protest from other ex-Muslims and atheists).[3] FFI's mission statement is included in Ibn Warraq's book Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out.[4] According to Internet Infidels, FFI "echoes the voice of Muslim dissidents that strive for freedom of faith and freedom from faith in Islamic countries."[5]

Website access and traffic

A 2002 study on internet filtering in Saudi Arabia identified FFI as among the web pages that were blocked in the country.[6] Ranking.com lists faithfreedom.org among the top 70,000 as measured by traffic as of January 2016.[7] According to Alexa, faifthfreedom.org was among the top 650,000 websites as of June 2019.[8]

Alleged deaths threats and hacking attempts

Because of the content of the site, Ali Sina claims to have received death threats from "two imams in India" who he alleges have offered a reward of US$20,000 (or 1 million Rupees) for anyone who kills him.[9][10] The site itself has been hacked and subject to DDOS attacks several times since the website opened, most recently in January 2010.[10][11]

Notable content

Articles

The website contains several articles authored by notable persons, including:

Debates

The website includes several debates between Ali Sina and Muslims, among them are prominent scholars such as Edip Yuksel[18] and Yamin Zakaria of the ICSSA.[19][20]

Sina's contention is that Islam promotes hate and disunity, and thus poses an impediment to peace. According to his website, he has issued a challenge that should anyone prove him wrong he will publicly acknowledge his error and withdraw his charges against Islam, and will pay $50,000 to that person.[21]

WikiIslam
WikiIslam-logo

In September 2006, FFI launched[22] WikiIslam, a community-edited wiki collecting critical and often incorrect material about Islam.[23] According to the FAQ section on the website, "the main difference between WikiIslam and Wikipedia is that opinions critical of Islam are not censored on WikiIslam for political correctness".[23] Due to the controversial nature of the website, it has been subject to vandalism, due to which increased security measures have been employed.

WikiIslam was the subject of an article in the 7/2007 issue of the journal Contemporary Islam, entitled "Cyber-Islamophobia? The case of WikiIslam",[23] which argues that the website commits selection bias by collecting only negative or critical material.[23][24] The article states that "In relation to the criteria set up by the Runnymede Trust ... it should be quite easy to label most of the material published on WikiIslam as expressions of Islamophobia." Göran Larsson adds that "[m]y impression is that the stories reported by WikiIslam have merely been selected to show that Muslims are ignorant, backward or even stupid."[23][25] Because of the presence of material obtained from other websites, such as MEMRI, the article notes that "it becomes much more difficult to argue that all information posted on WikiIslam is Islamophobic by nature".[23]

In August 2008, the WikiIslam site was moved to a new server and since then it has been operating independently.[26] Since December 2015 EXMNA took over ownership and operation of WikiIslam.[27]

See also

References
  1. Jamie Glazov (Dec 31, 2004). "Symposium: Gender Apartheid and Islam". FrontPageMagazine.com. Archived from the original on April 17, 2009. Retrieved September 18, 2007.
  2. Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. p. 379. ISBN 0-618-68000-4.
  3. Internet Archive of relevant Richard Dawkins Page
  4. Ibn Warraq (2003). Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. pp. 433–436. ISBN 1-59102-068-9.
  5. Islam - related sites Archived 2012-02-19 at the Wayback Machine by Internet Infidels
  6. "URLs Blocked in Saudi Arabia – "F" Faith Freedom". Archived from the original on 2007-02-04. Retrieved 2006-12-13.
  7. Faith Freedom at ranking.com
  8. "Faithfreedom Competitive Analysis, Marketing Mix and Traffic - Alexa". www.alexa.com. Retrieved 2019-06-04.
  9. Muslim Mindset: 'The hatred is in Muhammad himself' – Jerusalem post Interviews Ali Sina.
  10. Miller, A. "Recent Attacks On "Counter Jihad" Websites". International Free Press Society. Archived from the original on December 16, 2010. Retrieved October 9, 2010.
  11. Faith Freedom hacked Archived 2010-04-16 at the Wayback Machine, June 7, 2008, Jihad Watch
  12. see here Archived 2014-12-17 at the Wayback Machine and here Archived 2013-10-20 at the Wayback Machine
  13. see here Archived 2012-10-21 at the Wayback Machine and Emerson's own website
  14. See here Archived 2012-10-11 at the Wayback Machine and here Archived 2013-02-13 at the Wayback Machine
  15. see here Archived 2012-11-01 at the Wayback Machine and here
  16. see here Archived 2012-10-23 at the Wayback Machine and here
  17. see here Archived 2012-12-27 at the Wayback Machine and here
  18. Peacemaker's Guide to Warmongers: Exposing Robert Spencer, David Horowitz, and other Enemies of Peace by Edip Yuksel, 2010, Published by Brainbow Press, ISBN 978-0-9796715-3-1; p. 145-267
  19. ICSSA, Exposing Blindness of "Freethinkers" about Islam; A Debate between YAMIN ZAKARIA and ALI SINA; Published: February 27, 2005]
  20. "Debates". FaithFreedom.org. Archived from the original on October 16, 2011. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
  21. Sina's Challenge Archived 2016-02-04 at the Wayback Machine, Jerusalem Post
  22. On Monday Sept 4, 2006, (WikiIslam) was opened to the public. Archived 2015-10-01 at the Wayback Machine
  23. Cyber-Islamophobia? The case of WikiIslam, Journal: Contemporary Islam, publisher Springer Netherlands, ISSN 1872-0218 (Print) 1872-0226
  24. "Compared to “Muslim homepages”, i.e. those set up by believing Muslims, WikiIslam contains only negative and critical examples. This bias is clearly represented in the section called “laughing with the prophet”, which presents stories and reports from the life of prophet Muhammad (i.e. hadith reports)." ibid.
  25. Islamophobia: A Challenge For Us All, p. 5, Runnymede Trust (1997).
  26. "WikiIslam". Archived from the original on 2016-06-24. Retrieved 2016-07-06.
  27. "Ex-Muslims of North America takes ownership and operation of WikiIslam". Ex-Muslims of North America. 2015-12-03. Retrieved 2020-05-26.
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