Three Kashmiris built the app to show what Islam is, as opposed to its popular portrayal
In order to merge the different Islamic groups into an online forum to propagate and understand Islam, three developers from Kashmir have launched a first of its kind Islamic chat messenger app called ‘Muslim Chat and Discussions’, reported the Rising Kashmir.
The application, which was launched on the Google Playstore on April 25, has a five star rating and more than 10,000 active users from different parts of the world. The developers, Naveed Ahmed (25), Faheem Ahmed (22) and Suheel Dar (23) — all hailing from Budgam own ummartalk.com, a website first launched in Malaysia and Thailand.
Though the team first launched the website abroad they wanted to start something primarily for Kashmir based users. “We always wanted to build a Kashmir based network but we failed in our first attempt because of the lack of resources,” said Faheem.
“Friends from Indonesia and Malaysia helped us translate the application into Bahasa Indonesia and widely promoted the application there,” added Dar.
This 6.6 megabyte application has been invented with the hope to built a community based network.
“Muslim Chat and Discussions application is intended to provide Muslims around the world with a platform to express view on Islam and for Non-Muslims to learn more about the religion,” Faheem told the daily, adding, “Islam is a peaceful religion. The world needs to know the true teachings of the Islam.”
According to the developers, Muslim youth’s disconnect from Islamic seminaries and waste of time and resource on social media, triggered them to develop this app.
“The immoralities on social media influence their behaviour. The launch of this application was to provide an alternative that helps them understand, practice and propagate Islamic values and teachings to the wider audiences,” they said.
“We thought to reach out to them on internet. Our network is open to Muslims and non-Muslims alike to understand and know the true teachings of Islam,” added Dar.
Reportedly, despite the internet ban in the valley local user downloads for the app have increased.
Behind the scenes
Three app developers from Budgam first launched a website ummartalk.com in Malaysia and Thailand first.
Though, the developers wanted it to start in Kashmir, they couldn’t do so for lack of resources there.
Their primary aim is to provide a space for discussion about the religion and understand it better.
Another aim is to draw the attention of the tech-savvy youth from the influence of online ‘immoralities’.
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