New Muslim virtual world launches

The virtual world, called Muxlim Pal, is visually similar in style to popular virtual hangout Habbo, and lets users customise the appearance of their avatars. The world sports shopping areas, an arena, bar and beach.

Characters in the game are dictated to by several gauges that control their happiness, fitness, knowledge and spirituality. Muxlim Pal is free to play, though will include some optional premium elements such as the purchasable virtual currency.

“We are not a religious site, we are a site that is focused on the lifestyle,” Muxlim.com founder Mohamed El-Fatatry told the BBC. “This is for anyone who is remotely interested in the Muslim culture and the Muslim lifestyle.

“From what we have seen from our market research is that most Muslims have a lifestyle that is not so different from everybody else. They all share the core values which are from Islam then beyond that they actually have made identities, they have many interests.

“We were seeing that our users were enjoying certain character developing elements of Muxlim.com, and as no other virtual world offers a family-friendly environment for our community, we felt there was a need to cater for the people who were being left out.

“This is nowhere near the vision of where it will be someday. It is very important to put things out and listen to how people interact with it. What feedback they give us and then that will play a big role in which direction we take the product in.”