Faith online

Ramadhan is a special moment for Muslims to be more religious by offering more prayers.

Those who find books of prayers impractical now may use doamuslim.com, an online archive of Islamic prayers, including niat (intention) for daily prayers (shalat), before going to sleep or before eating.

The prayers are presented in Arabic, provided with transliteration in the Latin alphabet and also translation in Indonesian.

“We reproduce the prayers from books, websites and reliable sources. We did not write the prayers ourselves,” said the website’s founder Septian Deni Saputra.

The website was launched in May 20, 2012, in Banyumas, Central Java, listing 33 prayers and will be added to gradually.

“We are posting periodically so it will be effective in the search engine website.

If the updates were scheduled, hopefully the search engine will record the updates perfectly so that people can find the website easily,” Septian said.

“Although I have never written a book, I am sure that it is different. When a book is printed, all of its sections have to be completed or it will need a revision, unlike a website, which can be updated at any time.”

In creating the portal, Septian and his team were preparing the website’s substance and the company’s marketing. Meanwhile for the website’s design and programming, Septian was assisted by his friend, Amri MF, who has experience in website creation.

The website is using advertising for income.

Meanwhile, for Muslims who want to read the Koran, they can download a mobile application released by mobile developer 7Langit for free.

The app’s size is below 100kb and is only compatible with BlackBerry smartphones. Users can read the 114 chapters (surat) and 6,236 verses (ayat) inside the application without installing an Arabic font. To read the Koran, the mobile phone has to connect with the Internet.

Users can pick a chapter to be displayed by choosing from the list. They can also choose displaying a particular chapter and verse by using the “Go to Ayat” feature.

The application will display one verse at a time. To read the previous or the next verse, users can use the keypad shortcut.

Users can activate the feature of transliteration into the Latin alphabet. There is also a translation feature into Indonesian using a translation given by the Religious Affairs Ministry.

The app was launched in August 2009 and has been downloaded by 352,000 users who had opened 82 million verses.

“Some of the users are from other countries. They don’t use the translation and transliteration, only the Arabic,” 7Langit’s chief of technology development Oon Arfiandwi said.

7Langit has also released another app related to Ramadhan named Teman Ibadah (Worship Buddy) for BlackBerry and Android smartphones.

The app listed schedules of daily prayers, pre-dawn (imsak), and dusk (maghrib) during Ramadhan in dozens of cities.

Launched in 2010, Teman Ibadah has also listed the location of 15,000 mosques in Java and Bali and shows them using a map.

“It also contains the Koran. For Android users, they don’t need to stay online to read the Koran, because it is included in the app,” Oon said.

He said that the Koran app for both BlackBerry and Android phones was also provided with recitations, so that users could not only read but also listen how to read. 

Source : http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/07/29/faith-online.html