Our Twitter friend, ismaild, sent us message informing us of a new blog showcasing the Ramadan experience.

"Ramadan 2008 creates a space for Muslims in South Africa and around the world, to come together and share their Ramadan experiences and thoughts on one platform. Ismail Dhorat coordinated a wide spectrum of young writers from across the globe to blog individually on the site. The bloggers write under different categories and update the site regularly.

In Ramadan Experiences, users can take little peeks into the daily Ramadan experience of Muslims in other countries. Meanwhile, daily updates in the Recipe category will make it easier for users to prepare the most delectable treats every day. Since charity is also extremely important during this holy month, an entire category is dedicated to charities looking for support from fellow Muslims. For inspiration and spiritual growth, users can turn to the Islam and Hadeeth category (where writers focus on different aspects of the Islamic faith) or the Spiritual Awakening Boot Camp (a follow-at-home boot camp to help Muslims have a spiritually uplifting Ramadan). The site also features a Ramadan Stream*, which brings together content related to Ramadan from all over the Internet into a single page."

Read our friend Rias Sherzad’s blog on the Ramadan site (Rias is the CEO from Salam Business Club)

Also check out (IslamCrunch supporter) Jamaaludeen Khan’s blog, he has some Ramadan secrets to share.

* Great way to get your Ramadan fix. See Ramadan blog posts, tweets, articles from all across the globe.

Photo credit: http://flickr.com/photos/44452545@N00/45540389

Our friends at the upcoming SalamBC (Salam Business Club, formerly known as Muslim Business Club) have graciously shared with us the above screenshot of their upcoming launch.

The SalamBC logo and dashboard are being currently being developed and should be available for preview soon.

From Rias Sherzad, CEO of SalamBC:

“The block with the four members shown are dynamically derived from your IP’s location and checked against our database. So you will always see members that live close to you which, in my case, would be members from Hamburg.”

For more info about SalamBC: http://islamcrunch.com/archives/exclusive-muslim-business-club-re-launches-as-salam-business-club/

Here’s our original interview with MuslimBC: http://islamcrunch.com/archives/media-exclusive-islamcrunch-interviews-muslim-business-club/

Kitaba is a new website promoting the needs of visually impaired Muslims in their search of sacred knowledge. IslamCrunch is a big supporter of sacred knowledge and we would like to highlight the efforts of Kitaba. Check out their mission statement:

“We have established a social enterprise community project dedicated to empowering and promoting the growth and well-being of visually impaired Muslims and their communities through meeting their religious, educational and developmental needs, thereby advancing accessibility and awareness. Our primary focus is on providing accessibility to information and knowledge relevant to their Islamic needs. We also support families, teachers and other service providers who are supporting Muslims with a visual impairment.”

And about Kitaba:

“We at the Islamic Texts for the Blind believe that all people with visual impairments should be empowered and should be able to participate fully in cultural, community and religious activities. We recognise that Muslims with visual impairments have to overcome many barriers.”

To support Kitaba, become a member – it’s easy to do and it’s free. Membership is open to our service users, volunteers, network agencies, partners, voluntary organisations and mainstream service providers. As a member, you will be kept up to date with all the latest news and events and you will be invited to the Annual General Meeting.

To find out more about Kitaba, visit http://www.kitaba.org and add Sidi Adnan Tariq on Facebook (read his inspirational story here: http://www.kitaba.org/Stories/AdnanTariq.aspx). You can visit his personal blog here: http://www.adnant.wordpress.com/

HalfDate is a new endeavor that is a platform for sadaqa promotion. Users submit a cause or charity that they want to promote. HalfDate chooses a project to promote every month. No funds are collected by HalfDate, all proceeds go directly to the project.

More info can be seen at their site:

"Each Hijri month, you will suggest a specific cause (specific goal and due date) and HalfDate.com will feature it as a DateDrive. For example, through HalfDate, Muslims around the globe (from Trinidad to California) have:

• Donated over $5,127.54 for textbook
• Showed their care for convert Muslims
• Expressed their appreciations to halal businesses, and
• Donated to publish five teacher study guides for children books

As you can see, HalfDate is not only about monetary donation drives, because in Islam, the concept of sadaqa (charity) is much broader than that.

HalfDate.com is a charity/cause site, every month, you and the Ummah come together to solve one issue, at least get one specific goal done using our collective resources and efforts.

Please tell the brothers and sisters in your company/community about
HalfDate.com, the upcoming BIGGEST Sadaqa promoter on the net (not yet
there, but in-sha-Allah). So far, Muslims from CISCO, Google, EDS, MathWork, Cap Gemini, New York Times companies, … are all educating themselves about HalfDate."

There is an opportunity for HalfDate to acquire $20,000 in funds which they will donate to children and/or education causes.

So, here are the consequences for achieving or missing this drive’s goal (deadline: July 27, 2008).

1. If we achieve 20,000 subscribers to the mailing list, in-sha-Allah, a group of Muslims (HalfDate founders and friends) are pledging to give $20,000 to children or education causes.
2. If we miss the goal, we have to cancel next month’s drive as a sign of failure.

Sign up for their mailing list to find out about their monthly sadaqa projects.

Not only is this an exclusive interview but also our first interview request via Twitter. We sent a direct tweet to the founder and VP of Marketing, Ashraf Mansoor asking for an exclusive interview. He was very gracious to participate and discuss Twffaha, a new job recruitment portal specifically for women in the Middle East. Twffaha is based in Sudan and has already been featured on several sites, check out this review from StartupArabia. This interview marks their first media article via a Western Muslim site. Ashraf is also very kind to offer our female readers looking for work in the Middle East a beta invite to their site. Read the interview for instructions.

IslamCrunch: What is your web application/service about?

Twffaha: We connect women who are looking for jobs to employers who are looking to recruit women for certain vacancies. Twffaha is the only portal specialized in recruiting women in the Middle East.

IslamCrunch: Why did you start this project?

Twffaha: We feel that the online recruitment market in the Middle East is already full with prominent players. However, as a job seeker or employer you will find it harder every time you look for a job or advertising a job in case
you were an employer. The market needs to be more organized, and that
can be achieved by exploiting niches and adding value for both parties, job seekers by offering them a portal that is only aimed at women, and employers by reducing their recruiting costs and offering them more focused job postings.

IslamCrunch: How does your project relate to Muslims? Or is your project geared towards a general audience?

Twffaha: Twffaha.com is geared toward a general audience, we do not ask for
information regarding your religion background. However, we do not allow
employers to post jobs related to activities we deem illegal in Islam. For example,
if an employer posted a related to Alcohol/Bars through our service we will remove the job posting and refund him/her.

IslamCrunch: How much time do you devote to its growth?

Twffaha: As a startup we devote a large chunk of our time in developing, marketing, and managing Twffaha.com in order to ensure it will keep growing organically. Working for 50 hours a week is our average.

IslamCrunch: How large is your team and what are your backgrounds?

Twffaha: The team behind the service comes from different cultures and background. We are well experienced with web development as Twffaha is actually our third project, although it is the first one we operate solely. Our team currently consists of two main members Ashraf Mansoor who is in charge of Development and Marketing and Ammar Mustafa who is responsible for Operations and Sales. We are looking to hire 3 more talented individuals to join our team in the following 2-3 months enshallah.

IslamCrunch: What is your design/service philosophy?

Read the rest of this entry »