Britain names 20 most influential pro-Islamic blogs

LONDON - British counter terror officials have compiled a list of the top 20 most influential “pro-Islamic” bloggers, who write about Britain’s politics.

The British Government’s counter terrorism communications unit found that a network of Islamic political bloggers is reaching “a critical mass.

“Compared with other political blogging communities this is not terribly high. As suspected, any pro-Islamic blogging community is likely to be still in its early stages of development in quantitative terms,” The Telegraph quoted David Stevens of Nottingham University, who conducted the research, as saying.

“However the existence of Islamic blog-feed sites indicates that the community is reaching something of a critical mass,” he added.

The top 20 list includes several blogs which are based outside Britain but post on British politics in English.

The study also found that Islamic bloggers draw much of their information from the mainstream media, such as the BBC website, The Times and the Guardian.

Very little information was drawn from Arabic news services such as al-Jazeera or Islam Online, the study said.

The research seeks to find new ways of communicating the Government’s anti-terror message to a section of the Muslim community, which is not reachable through the mainstream media.

The anti-Islamic blogging community is much larger than the pro-Islamic network, the study further said. (ANI)