The world’s first "Islamic orientated" internet search engine, which flags content that might be considered "haraam" – or forbidden – by Muslims, has been hailed a success by its creators after it attracted more than 500,000 users in its first two weeks on the web.

ImHalal.com has been designed to "help Muslims explore the internet in a safe and clean environment", according to Reza Sardeha, the 20-year-old business management student who runs it.

Mr Sardeha, who is based in Amsterdam, told The Times: "We already have received quite a number of positive feedback from Non-Muslims saying they have set ImHalal.com as their homepage so that their children can explore the internet without coming across ‘filth’ as well."

The site works by assigning the search terms that are plugged in by users a "haraam level", which indicates the likelihood of the results they bring up touching upon things forbidden under Islam.

If a term is deemed completely safe, the results pop up immediately.

By contrast, tapping in the search term "pig", an animal that Muslims are not allowed to eat, prompts a warning that the word has been assigned a "haraam level" of "1", and the user is alerted that the results may be offensive. The user is then given the choice of viewing the results regardless, or of abandoning his search.

The Satanic Verses, the Salman Rushdie novel that led to a fatwa being put on the author’s head, gets a haraam rating of two - suggesting there is a higher chance of running into dangerous content.

"Pornography" triggers a haraam rating of three – the highest score, which indicates the highest likelihood of finding forbidden material.

Mr Sardeha said: "We hope that in about one year time our search engine will be the most used search engine in the Middle East to start with and in the top three most used search engine in the world."

He added: "While our main product will always remain search we will roll out additional services in the near future like Islamic Widgets."