Welcome to the inaugural Muslim blogging carnival: The State of the Ummah! (Cue: wild applause).

What the heck is a Blogging Carnival?
A blogging carnival is a regular or semi-regular forum where bloggers nominate posts, typically centred around a particular theme or fulfilling certain requirements, to a specified blog (either hosted permanently, or floating around the blogosphere). When the due date is up, the Carnival host then collects all, or the best of, the posts and creates an uber-post of links for Carnival members and interested visitors to surf. To see a Carnival in action go here. To learn more go here.

What’s The State of the Ummah?
Well, to get the ball-rolling I’m hosting The State of the Ummah here at Dervish, but insha’Allah as it grows, hopefully other Muslim bloggers will volunteer to host as well. Th means more link-a-roonies for you and lots of fine reading for us!

How does the first one work?
Okay, now we get down to the fine print. The first topic will be easy, simply choose your best post since 1 July 2005 and submit it by emailing host.sotu AT gmail DOT com with the following information:

* The name of your blog with a link (preferably with a hyperlink).
* The title of your submitted post and a link to the post (also preferably with a hyperlink.)
* A couple of sentences to describe your submitted post (which may be edited by the host).
* Optional (for host and blogger): a trackback link

Example:

Dervish
The Scriptures on Forgiveness
Description: A short collection of verses from the Bible and the Qur’an on forgiveness.
Trackback

The due date for the first Carnival is: 11:59PM, Friday 29 July 2005, Greenwich Mean Time. (Click here to convert to your own timezone.)

What are the Rules?
To keep things on track, there are a few simple rules:

1. The State of the Ummah is open to all bloggers who hold to the basic Muslim credal statement: la illaha illa Allah , Muhammad arrasul Allah “there is no god but God, Muhammad is the Messenger of God”. A non-Muslim blogger who writes an exceptionally good post about Islam and/or the Muslim world, which is not antithetical to Islam or Muslims, may submit their post for consideration.

2. The point of The State of the Ummah is to give readers a taste of the state of Muslim blogging today, what informs Muslims, what Muslims believe, what Muslim life is like etc. For the first Carnival, the topic is simply “your best post”, so it does not have to be on a particular (Islamic or ordinary) theme.

3. Bloggers can sumbit one post from an individual blog. You can nominate a post from your own and/or other blogs.

Let the Carnival begin - Blog On!