Every Friday, as the sun begins to creep past its apex, Gemal Seede squeezes past the crowded rows at the Islamic Center of Southern California in Los Angeles.
A blank tape clutched in one hand, Seede prepares to record the weekly sermon, which he'll upload into the virtual mosque at IslamiCity, a site he helps maintain on the World Wide Web.
Many hours later and a continent away, Ahmad Phelps slips out of bed and flips on his computer. A British Muslim living in Birmingham, he often prays with friends in silence.
But sometimes, when he is alone, he says, he logs on to IslamiCity and listens to a prerecorded file of the Adhan, or the call to prayer spoken in Arabic.
As the audio begins to stream from his PC, Phelps turns toward Mecca and begins to pray.
"There's a whole invisible community of people beyond my screen," said Seede, who works as director of technology for Warner Bros. Online. "We just want to pass along our philosophy and help people feel more connected spiritually."
In an age when technological progress often overshadows faith, the Internet is emerging as a global pulpit for millions of believers.
Buddhists seek enlightenment in online sanghas at BuddhaNet, asking for insight to the meaning of life. Jews turn to thewall.org to type out messages, which students of Aish HaTorah in Jerusalem print out and place in the Western Wall. And in Southern California--home to several tech-savvy evangelical groups--the search for online salvation has opened an important new revenue stream, as fans log into the Crystal Cathedral's Web site and make digital donations to the Garden Grove ministry.
Like the corporate world, the religious world has embraced the global network as a means of marketing its views and expanding its base. Each sect has its own approach and its own goals, but one thread unites them all: to remain relevant to an increasingly fickle audience.
While the Internet is the most modern way to save souls, it also is accelerating a global trend that challenges traditional religious authority.
For the masses, the Net's potpourri of beliefs helps people take a do-it-yourself approach when finding faith. Interpretation becomes personal, and cyberspace a smorgasbord of rules and beliefs.
Some religious leaders say they must adapt to this reality or risk losing touch with their future flock. They note that the attitudes of a new generation of believers are being influenced by new media; a small but growing number of youngsters are turning to the Net for their religious input, according to a recent survey by Ventura-based Barna Research Group.
