Twelve figures with remarkable achievements in different fields have been crowned the stars of 2009 in an annual online voting competition organized by IslamOnline.net to spotlight people whose service to humanity and contribution to changing the lives of others usually go unreported.
"I am deeply honoured to be the IOL star of Dialogue," says Jacob Erle, director of the International Academy for Education and Democracy and president of the Association of World Education. Erle has been voted the Star in the field of Dialogue (Interfaith – Intercultural) with 49.9 percent of the votes in the category.
Based on an online interactive competition, 12 people were chosen as the stars of the year 2009/1430 in 11 fields of achievement, with two sharing the award in one category with equal votes.
The contest, organized by IslamOnline.net for the second consecutive year, was launched on December 19, 2009, attracting voters from more than 120 countries. They nominated 56 candidates from 14 countries in different fields, including volunteerism, education, Daw`ah, art, sports and human rights.
A special corner was devoted for non-Muslim figures who have effectively interacted with Muslim communities in 2009.
A month after launching the competition, IOL received 4077 votes on the 56 star nominees. The page created specifically for the competition received more than 55,000 page views since its launching less than a month ago.
"We are very pleased with the scale of participation showed by our visitors this year," says Rania Raga’i, Managing Editor of IOL Interactive Department which organized the competition. "We hope that will increase in the coming year."
Achievers
Raga’i noted that the aim of the annual Stars competition is to spotlight people have served humanity and changed the lives of others.
"The competition was a chance, even for IOL Stars team themselves and of course for many, if not all our visitors, to know about people who have done and are still doing distinguished roles for the benefit of their societies," she added. "We know that every one of them deserves to be the star of the year, which makes them 56 stars not only 12."
Muslim singer Sami Yusuf has been voted IOL Star in the field of Arts that Serves Human Values and Causes.
World-renowned author and thinker Arun Yahya is the 2009 Star in the field of daw`ah activities.
Malian Muslim super striker Frederic Kanoute, who plays in the Spanish football league, has been crowned Sports Star of the year.
British MP George Galloway, the driving force behind the Viva Gaza aid convoys to besieged Gaza Strip, has been voted IOL Star in the field of Human Rights.
Organica Lu, a US freelance writer, blogger and online activist, and Abrarul Hasan, founder of the Next Generation Islamic toolbar – ISLAM Web 2.0. – shared the stardom of the New Media Activities field.
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