The Aalulbayt (a.s.) Global Information Center

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The Aalulbayt (a.s.) Global Information Center is a organization under the under the supervision of the office of Grand Ayatollah Sistani ^[1]. While they themselves include "(as)" in their organization title ^[1], some omit it ^[2].

1 Goals
2 History
3 Sites
4 Impact
5 See also
6 References

[edit] Goals

Its goals is "to spread the Shi`ite culture through the WEB and create a kind of strong relation between the theological class and the public" ^[1]

To reach above aim, they concentrate on ^[1]:

Quick responses to religious questions.
Access to a data bank containing thousands of theological Q & A.
Directly linking you to the prominent scholars of Qom.
Access to a data bank containing information on sectarian differences between the Sunni & Shia faiths.

[edit] History

The organization was founded in the spring of 1998, on the anniversary of Eid al-Ghadeer^[1], by Sistani's son-in-law "in a small building" in holy Shi'a city of Qom, a scholarly center of Shi'a Islam ^[3]

[edit] Sites

They operate though various internet websites, including:

al-shia.com ^[4]

"available in no less than 27 languages, boasting huge archives, everything translated by a group of students, native speakers, in Qom. There are Afghans, Tajiks, Russians, northern Africans; they have been transferring all Shi'ite textbooks online for three years now. Zadeh says this is considered the number one Shi'ite website, and number seven among all Muslim websites. It has an average of 250,000 visits a month, from as many as 133 countries."^[5]

holynajaf.net^[6]
sistani.org ^[5]
Quran.al-shia.com "only about the Koran, the whole book translated in 27 languages, plus interpretations"^[5]
balaghah.net, with a collection of Imam Ali's sayings in 22 languages.

[edit] Impact

Accoring to Asia Times Online ^[5], the organization is "The heart of Shi'ite proselytizing" . International Herald Tribune has also mentioned the organization ^[3]. The New York Times has has pictures from the Center^[7]