About MuslimPhotos and the photographer
MuslimPhotos.net started in June 2006 by the amateure photographer Athar - residing in Norway. This project started after he travelled to Palestine in June 2004 and Istanbul in October 2005 . When he came back with his pictures, his friends begged him to make the pictures public. They'd been reading about many of those places he'd taken pictures of, but they'd never been able to see them with their own eyes. Even good pictures from those places were difficult to find. Athar was adviced to do something about it, in stead of just letting them be on his computer.Athar bought MuslimPhotos.net and installed the Coppermine Photo Gallery to manage the pictures. Soon after this he also travelled to Pakistan .
Athar love travelleing and started to love photography as well. After he married in autumn 2006, he took his wifte to Morocco, Spain, Syria and Lebanon for their honeymoon. In July 2007 they went to Saudi Arabia for their first common Umrah.
The next major travel is not entirely deceided upon.
The purpose of MuslimPhotos
My aim with this project is to share high quality pictures from my journeys to Islamic historical places around the world. I also have pictures from places that are related to Judaism and Christianity as these religions are related to Islam.I also want to be a resource for others, who needs pictures of Islamic and Muslim places for their projects. I currently contribute with pictures for magazines, poster makers, calenders in addition to webe sites on the Internet.
It is also my aim to promote more positive sides of Islam and Muslims, as violence and terrorism are not dominant sides of its people and not a part of the religion - contrary to the image one gets from main stream media. Showing pictures of our cultural heritage and architecture is a great way of doing that.
Another aim is to give others the chance to see the historical and holy places which I've been graced to visit. Many Muslims would be happy to see such rare pictures of good quality, as these are not commonly found on the Internet or other places. The database can also of course be used to plan one's travels and holidays.
The database has also an educational side, as many students would be eager to go these places, but maybe can't find the means. Photos are a good substitute.
