URL:   www.muslimplanet.org

eMail:  iCommunity@mail.muslimplanet.org

iCommunity is the enabling platform to achieve the mission of the Muslim Planet Project. A part of it is a technology platform designed and developed by the community for the purpose of reaching out to the community. It endeavors to enable the community to express themselves for a voice in the main stream USA. It provides the means to outreach via intra-community and inter-community dialogues. 

iCommunity platform has three main components. First is the technology platform. Second is the set of services that the platform provides to the community. Third is a sociological transformation within the community that is sought through the use of the services that the platform provides.

1-Technology Platform

The platform embodies the following technologies.

1. Computer hardware and software systems with C2 Security.
2. Web server technology adapted for the community.
3. Secure inter node and intra node communications.
4. Blogging services enabled by our content management system.
5. Secure file transfer server.
6. Database management server embedded in the content management server.
7. Hypertext preprocessor (PHP) scripting.
8. Python language including the beautifulsoup.
9. Tools for the community to develop their own websites.
10. email server and SMTP services.
11. Mailmerge technology for personalized mailing.
12. Sending bulk email campaigns in hundreds of thousands.

These technologies for the platform have already been designed and built. They are now operational; ready in the service of the community. More services will be added and the technology will be expanded in capabilities, performance, security, and scope.

2-Platform Services

iCommunity is a platform by the community and for the community. It is community's platform. Technologically speaking, it is rich in functionality and features that are enabled using the leading edge technology that we designed into it. And we are not stingy when it comes to the resources that we place at your disposal. We have also unlocked most restrictions that are common elsewhere, so that you can explore all the possibilities.

That is because we are not for profit. We do not lure you with free teasers with very restrictive scope so that you will need to upgrade to the premier or business levels to do anything meaningful. What we provide you is already premium and business class. It is community's platform; it is for the community, and it is by the community.

Currently, following services are available on the iCommunity platform. These services are offered for the community members to reach out to the community at personal, business, and organizational levels. We emphasize to promote intra community networking, exploring synergetic connections, business cooperation, organizational outreach, and strength and prosperity that arises from strong community foundations and bonding.

First, we have web technology. It allows us to provide you with websites. We can even give this service away because we host the websites ourselves. We will provide you with generous amount of storage space, and speedy Internet connectivity to this storage. You can use your website to introduce yourself to the Muslim Community in USA, or to the entire world. If you are a business or a service provider, you can market your products and services using this website. For example, the mosques and institutions can host their websites on the iCommunity platform to reach out to the community. We offer the service to the mosques and organizations free of charge. We hope to achieve a strong network of mosques interacting among themselves and gradually expanding their scope nationally. Additionally, we have databases of mosques and organizations, etc. This enables us to send out email campaigns on the national level. All this is offered free of charge. 

Second, we have content management technology which allows us to provide you with your own Blogging space in the Internet Cloud. You can share your ideas and activities using your own Blog; you can even market your business capabilities and services on this Blog. Mosques and institutions can use their Blogs for community outreach. We provide the services free of charge to the mosques and the community institutes.

Third, we have our own email servers. In addition, we have working arrangements to use a reputed SMTP server in order to send out bulk emails. That means two things. First, we can provide the community members opportunity to run their own email server domains like user@MyMosque.org. Having your own email server on iCommunity platform is a very privileged capability. It is far bigger than just having your own email addresses like myID@muslimplanet.org or myID@gmail.com. Second, we can send bulk emails. This means that we can send hundreds of thousands emails. These emails can even be customized, like addressing personally to Dear Mr. Smith or to My_Islamic_Center. For example, we can send email announcements, brochures, or newsletters to all the Mosques in USA, or all the Muslim Businesses in USA, or all the Muslim Organizations in USA.

Fourth, we have document management capability. This allows us to electronically publish materials from the members of the community. This material can be a book that you have written or want to write. It could also be your recent article, your collected essays, collection of your poems, your novel, your biography, your analysis of social and political events,  or whatever is dear to your heart. We will publish your material electronically and make it globally available on our iCommunity platform.

Fifth, we intend to establish The Muslim Planet Publishing House for hardcopy book publishing. Members of the community can choose to publish their works in hardcopy. 

These services are offered to the community members free or at cost.

3-Sociological Transformation

The services, as described above, are currently available on the iCommunity platform. More services will be added as need for them arises from within the community, and resources become available. The overarching principle for providing these services is to bring the community on one platform, and to encourage an open intra-community dialogue. The dialogue is towards a unified stance to commit to a forward looking proactive action plan.

The action plan has the objectives to empower the community within the context of the US mainstream geopolitics, have its own representatives in the House and the Senate, to capitalize on Islamic oriented businesses, to establish a mutual support system of welfare within the community, and to spread prosperity within the community and beyond. It is a tall order, and we have begun the necessary steps towards accomplishing it.

The process is two pronged: thought oriented and mobilization oriented. For the thought orientation we establish a "Think Tank" of the community, by the community, and for the community. This think tank analyses the community needs, resources, possibilities, and opportunities. We mobilize the community for actualizing the opportunities by analyzing the community membership and bringing them to a platform.

Below we explain how the Think Tank will come into being, and how the mobilization of the community will take place; and how The Muslim Planet Project plays as an enabling catalyst.

The Think Tank

The services on the iCommunity platform constitute the backdrop for the community to come together, start interacting, develop common understanding, adopt unified positions, and agree to a dynamically proactive action plan. The services act as attractors for the community to gravitate with cohesion. 

The dynamics of the intra-community interactions begin to serve as a "Virtual Think Tank". The discourse can start with the problems that the community faces and the strengths that the community possesses or must acquire towards the solutions and the community prosperity.

Out of this "virtual think tank" will gradually arise a group of individuals who will organize to rise to the occasion. This will morph into a physical Think Tank. This think tank can over time begin to formulate the long-term and middle-term goals for the Muslim Community in USA. The current goals serve in the meantime.

The think tank needs to represent the entirety of the community. As is generally true for any community, the Muslim community also consists of constituent population groups. The man in the street generally prefers to be in a supporting role for those who end up taking a lead role. Thus there are those individuals within the community that end up playing a lead role, and the others that end up playing the support role. This generally depends upon individual temperament, education, experience, and the role that an individual plays in the society. 

Among the Muslim community, each of these groups further divide into two broad segments. Roughly speaking, one segment is college educated with scientific bent of mind, and the second segment is religiously oriented madrassa graduated with theological bent of mind. These segments exist among those who lead as well as those in the support role. The Think Tank needs to take this diversity into account, and do so most respectfully.

Community Mobilization

The Think Tank reflects an understanding of the Muslim Community in USA, and a way for the community to grow into a coherent body that sets and achieves its own objectives using its own resources, in a self contained and independent manner.

The community mobilization is set in motion  via the Think Tank. There are practical steps that are taken to move the mobilization forward. These steps are according to the needs of the various segments of the community, with an objective to bring them all to one platform to work for the prosperity and dignity of the entire community.

These steps are discussed below together with the segments of the community which they serve.

News Journal

The mosques incorporate all parts of the community. However, the imams in the mosques largely represent the population with religiously oriented madrassa type background. Because the imams deliver the sermons, they are in a position to influence the community in accordance with their own background, education, training, and capabilities.

The imams are numerically small in number though their influence on the community is very significant. They already constitute sort of a think tank to influence the community.

It is therefore important to establish a dialogue between the imams and the rest of the community. The mechanism invented for this purpose is a News Journal that we have been writing and delivering to the mosques in USA.

The News Journal is invites the imams, and the community in general, to a more encompassing community platform.  This platform addresses all needs of the community: religion, humanity, jobs, schools, roads, courts, immigration, economy, business, and politics. It addresses all such aspects nationwide. It invites the imams to think of the needs of the community in today's context to encompass all such dimensions. The mosque need to become more relevant to all segments of the society. The mosques are a biggest asset of the community and can be used in the service of the community tin all facets of life in the modern times.

Scholarly Journal

The college graduated progressive segment of the Muslim community are very significant in numbers and resourcefulness. However, they exist only in their roles as professionals, and unlike the imams, they do not constitute a think tank type capability. Therefore, they do not significantly influence the community, except through donations to the mosques and other causes. Their true potential for the community remains untapped.

There are academicians among them who regularly do research and publish their findings. We invite all of them to research their experience with the Muslim communities, focusing on the cultural and civilizational aspects and applications to the modern life situations.

We invite the community members to submit their research results to our peer reviewed Journal of Muslim Culture. This will enable the community members to discover another dimension to their professional lives. It will also give rise to a recognized community of intellectuals, scholars, and subject matter experts. In this way, the intellectuals  and professionals in our community can form a specialized think tank type capability that allows them to contribute to the community at large in a systematic and meaningful way.

We urge the community members to take advantage of our Journal of Muslim Culture.

Annual Conference

We have described the following three types of specialized think tanks.

We have a "virtual think tank" that exists in the cyberspace using our iCommunity platform. Everyone can participate in it. It is the grand bazaar of our community.

Next we have a specialized think tank that consists of the imams within the mosques and the Islamic centers. Generally speaking, only the traditionally oriented madrassa educated members can belong to this think tank. It may not have to be so but our mosques are thus formatted.

We can have another specialized think tank that would emerge from the highly educated professionals like the scientists, engineers, and doctors.

The Think Tank for the entire Muslim community in USA presumably arises out of these. For that to happen, there is a strong need to bring these specialized think tanks together on one platform. The Annual Conference of Muslim Mosques and Intellectuals is designed for this purpose.

This conference would have participants from the mosques and from the professional intellectuals within the community. The participants from the mosques would include imams, members of the boards of directors, executive presidents, and other prominent members.  The participants from the professional intellectuals would include scientists, engineers, doctors, economists, politicians, and business owners.

This conference would initially have a technical aspect; and it would also have a strategic and tactical planning aspect.

The technical component would be like any other professional conference, for example containing plenary sessions and the parallel sessions on focused areas. The planning component would look at the short-term and middle-term goals for the Muslim Community in USA. They would evaluate if the short-term plan is being implemented satisfactorily. They would look ahead for the next cycle of short and middle term plans, which constitutes the long-term planning. In the light of the long term planning, they can recommend surgical adjustments to the current middle-term plan. This would be a course correction maneuver.

The body that performs this planning function is the Think Tank for the Muslim Community in USA. Naturally, this body would be elected presumably from the participants of the conference.