Figure 1

Muslims have long had a presence on the Internet, since engineering students were initially involved in creating it. Many of the first Muslim webpages were highly personal extensions of resumes, at times with information on Islam and the country of origin. In the past several years, however, the proliferation of personal websites and blogs has accelerated the variety of 'Muslim' identities represented in cyberspace. Many Muslim students belong to Muslim Student Associations (MSAs), which have provided an important service of archiving major Islamic texts and making search engines available. There is a national organization, started in 1963 while the Internet was still a distant unimagined space, following the first campus MSA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In addition to college and university chapters, the national organization sponors an annual Fast-a-thon raising money for charity. The main website is well organized with details on how to form chapters, helps for educating others about Islam and advice for combatting Islamophobia.

 
Since the fall of the Ba’ath regime, the Iraqi flag has become a contested symbol representing both the legacy of the old regime as well as the dissatisfaction with the occupation and current political process in the country. With all the attempts to change the flag, it seems that the legacy of Saddam will ironically linger through the words Allah Akbar. Even when we remind ourselves that these words were not patented by Saddam, this raises the question of identity of the new Iraqi state. The new design of the flag has changed from a secular ideological symbol (prior to 1991) into a symbol that represents the Islamic ideology of the new state and its Islamic majority alongside neighboring states with Muslim majorities.  Rather than an attempt to find a common denominator that would unify the complex mosaic population of the country, the new design has ultimately marginalized the many non-Islamic minorities, including seculars, who believe in the separation of religion and state. The Iraqi Parliament’s decision to change the flag is not only a historical process, but a process that has caused a contentious reaction amongst Iraqis. Thus, in looking at the short history and genealogy of the process of the recently changed flag, one will better understand the change.