New Age Islam History

New Age Islam was established in April 2008[3] by a group of Muslims concerned that the very
word Muslim has become synonymous with terrorism, backwardness and ignorance. Its founders
are mostly South Asian, some of them based in the Middle East, Europe, North
America and Australia.[12]

Sultan Shahin, the Indian editor of NewAgeIslam.com, said in a 2009 interview with The
Hindu newspaper that the thinking behind the institution went back at least a decade, to the time he
was hectored by an earnest young man outside Londons Finsbury Park mosque who said Indian
Muslims were not true Muslims as they did not resort to violence.[4] In a still earlier incident, a 20-
year-old member of the Ahle Hadees, a sect that propagates a puritanical interpretation of Islam, told
him that all Muslims who did not belong to his sect should be killed.[3] Shahin said these experiences
transformed him: It became clear to me that the Islam that I believe in was under serious threat, and
that I would have to do something if the religion I loved was not to be demeaned by the evil that was
being spoken in its name.[4]

Shahin spent the next few years writing in various print and online publications against religious
extremism, terrorism and sectarianism among Muslims and arguing for a return to Islams syncretic
values, before establishing New Age Islam and launching its website.[12] The website soon became
popular, gaining 29,000 subscribers for its newsletter within a year of its launch,[4] and 117,000
registered subscribers in two years.[3] It underwent a complete redesign in early 2012.

Editor of New Age Islam

Sultan Shahin

http://www.newageislam.com/

E-22, Indra Prastha Apts.,

114, I. P. Extension, New Delhi 110092