An Irish Islamic website which argues for the introduction of Sharia law here and extols the benefits of Islamic rules for women claims to have had nearly 270,000 hits last month alone.

Targeted at what it called Irish "O'Muslims", the Muslim Public Affairs Council website, www.mpac.ie, also warns readers about the dangers of imitating the Kuffar (non-believers in Islam).

In one article, entitled '21st Century Ireland - A man's world', the author notes that a woman may not need a man to take care of her but asks "would it not be nice?" to have someone to provide for her.

"Instead of constantly trying to be better-looking than all the other girls in the club… instead of trying to impress a different bloke every weekend, is it not nicer to have that special someone," it asks. "Someone who will always think you're the best-looking girl… and that really doesn't want you wearing as little clothes as possible because it's not nice for you to be so cold. Is that not better?"

A separate post examining whether introducing Sharia is a patriotic duty suggests that an "O'Muslim" has a "duty as a citizen of Ireland to work for its best interests".

"And who could doubt that establishing the authority of Allah in the land is in the best interests of Ireland?" it asks.

"To remove injustice and establish fairness, to remove moral degradation, immorality and licentiousness and establish propriety, righteousness and restraint and to establish tawheed (the worship of the Only One worthy of worship) are surely noble Islamic aims."

The website - which says all content is screened by moderators in advance of being posted online - last week carried references to the fact that "victory is near" because wars are bankrupting America and described the recent crucifixion of a paedophile and murderer in Saudi Arabia as "justice".

MPAC spokesman Liam Egan, who goes by the Muslim name Mujaahid, said the independent website was not affiliated with the Irish Council of Imams or any other Muslim organisation here and was run by a "volunteer group of indigenous Muslims".

"From a religious perspective we believe we represent a mainstream Islamic position... considering the specific content and its limited relevancy [a minority group in Ireland] we have witnessed an exponential rise in site hits, last month we had 269, 733," he told the Sunday Tribune.