Baltimore Sun: Islam on the Internet gains popularity in Iran

Excerpt:
"Los Angeles Times
Originally published April 15, 2007

QOM, Iran // This has always been a city with one foot in the present and two in the medieval past. A walk down its dusty main boulevard threads through epochs. Fast food chelo kebab stands and souvenir shops, with wallet-size portraits of the 7th century martyr Imam Hussein, crowd outside the colossal gold and blue domes of the Hazrat Masumeh shrine.

Mullahs in turbans pick their way defiantly through tangled ribbons of cars. Here, in a city that is the revered seat of Iran's powerful Shiite Muslim clergy and home to 52 Islamic seminaries, women in black chadors emerge from late-model Mercedes-Benzes with tinted windows.

Nowhere is this jarring juxtaposition of old and new more apparent than at the Aalulbayt Global Information Center, the place where Qom's ancient religious teachings and the Information Age intersect.

Here, stocking-footed men sit behind rows of computer screens in large rooms padded with deep Oriental carpets, typing out Web pages of Quranic analysis and religious edicts translated into 30 languages.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-te.iran15apr15,0,6100584.story?coll=bal-technology-headlines

Alex

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