A new Islamic social networking website is set to launch in Istanbul, Turkey. It is funded by prominent Muslim businessmen, according to Hurriyet Daily News, a Turkish newspaper.
"No politics, no bans, no limits,” reads the motto of the website, which the newspaper says will be streamed in 15 languages.
Salam World is owned by Russians and Turks who plan to invest US$15 million to open branches in 16 countries with large Muslim populations, according to asiancorrespondent.com, an Indonesian tech-blog, which revealed that the new website will have an office in Indonesia.
According to Hurriyet, SalamWorld will also open branches in Cairo, London, Moscow, Dubai and New York.
SalamWorld (Arabic for ‘"hello world") is not the first attempt to establish an Islamic website that would compete with social networking giant Facebook.
In 2010, a group of Pakistanis established millatfacebook.com. The initiative came in response to an offending Facebook page that had enraged Muslim users by running a competition for cartoons mocking Prophet Mohamed. The page prompted Pakistani authorities to temporarily block access to website in the country.
