Award Season

The holiday season has brought the weblog award season upon us as well. First came the 2004 Weblog Awards by Wizbang. I somehow got nominated for the Best Asian Blog contest there and ended up with 0.9% of the vote.

The voting for the Asia Blog Awards 2004 is taking place nowadays. This blog was voted the Best Pakistan Blog in these awards last year. This year, I recommend Chapati Mystery as the best Pakistan blog.

The Koufax awards, which are for the left half (politically, that is) of the blogosphere, closed nominations a couple of days ago and will begin voting soon.

And now, City of Brass and Alt.Muslim have started the Annual Brass Crescent Awards for the Islamic Blogosphere.

The Brass Crescent Awards are named for the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights. Today, the Islamsphere is forging a new synthesis of Islam and modernity, and is the intellectual heir to the traditions of philosophy and learning that was once the hallmark of Islamic civilization – a heritage scarcely recognizable today in the Islamic world after a century’s ravages of colonialism, tyrants, and religious fundamentalism. We believe that Islam transcends history, and we are forging history anew for tomorrow’s Islam. These awards are a means to honor ourselves and celebrate our nascent community, and promote its growth.

The Awards are loosely modeled after the successful Koufax Awards and consist of two phases:

First, bloggers and blog-readers are asked to submit nominations for each of the categories listed below. Both Muslims and non-Muslims may participate in the nominations process. Nominations can be done in the official nomination thread at AltMuslim or City of Brass, or via private email. Self-nominations are encouraged! (AltMuslim.com and City of Brass may not be nominated for any category)

After the nominations period has concluded, we will go through and post a list of nominees, along with brief descriptions of the blog and why they were nominated. This will serve as a snapshot that we hope will serve as a benchmark to track the growth of the Islamsphere over time. Please help us with this by leaving descriptive comments along with the nominations!

Second, based on the number of nominations each blog receives for each category, we will select 8-10 finalists for each category. Voting will then take place for winner in each category. The blog with second-highest vote count in each category will be granted honorable mention status.

The nomination thread is here:
First Annual Brass Crescent Nominations

Remember that Islamsphere does not mean “Muslims Only.”

In defining the Islamsphere, we are not relying solely on adherence to the faith, but an affinity for parts of the diverse cultural fabric that Islam embraces and is embraced by worldwide.

So go and nominate your favorite blogs and posts here.

I’ll update this post later with my nominations as it is late now and I am tired.

UPDATE: Here are some of my nominations: