When a fatwa is not necessarily a "fatwa"

 by Jennie S. Bev

In five short years, Facebook’s members have reached 200 million worldwide. If it were a country, it would be ranked fifth in size after China, India, the United States and Indonesia. It is the fourth largest democracy by far.

No wonder it has been receiving the attention of Indonesian Muslim clerics as well. In late May, 700 religious students and clerics from East Java attended a public forum on young women’s Islamic boarding schools, and ultimately determined that overusing Facebook and other social networking sites was haram, or forbidden.