Overseas Think Tank for Indonesia

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Archive for June 16th, 2009

The Thinker: When a Fatwa Is Not Necessarily a ‘Fatwa’

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Indonesian Islam is Sunni, not Shiite, which means a fatwa has no legally binding implications whatsoever.
Image source: mzdown2earth.xanga.com

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Written by Beni Bevly

June 16th, 2009 at 5:59 pm