An Islamic version of the social site Facebook is set to be launched in Indonesia in November, giving the 240 million people of the country another social media outlet. Salamworld, as it has been named, will also have an option that allows users to ensure the content they view is ‘Halal’, material allowed under Islamic law, and filter out indecent subject matter, such as pornography or illegal drugs.

“By filtering out harmful content and ensuring that its pages uphold and respect family values, Salamworld can be described as ''Halal Facebook'', the new social networking phenomenon,” the Herald Sun quoted Salamworld chairman Abdul-Vakhed Niyazov, as saying.

The world's most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia, is also the second-largest market in the world for Facebook and the third-largest for Twitter, the paper said. Niyazov has described the site as a "cleaner version of Facebook".

Salamworld, which is currently being tested by some 1000 users worldwide, would be available in eight languages, including English, Arabic, Turkish, Urdu and Russian, the paper added. Its creators want to tap into the large number of Muslim internet users, and hope to have 50 million users in five years, according to The Washington Post.

The major difference between Salamworld and other social networks will be the filtering of “offensive” content like pornography, and anything inciting terrorist activity or human rights violatio

Chat rooms will be moderated, and online communities will be called upon to remove or report offensive content, which has led sceptics to believe Muslim youth will equate this “filtering” with censorship. “We aren’t a mosque,” says Jawus Selim Kurt, the PR director of Salamworld. “We don’t censor, and there will of course be the same kind of freedom users enjoy on other social networking sites... [but] Every freedom in the world has its boundaries”.

It’s not as if the Net didn’t already have plenty to offer Muslims. Mail-order companies, for example, offer two-piece amira hijabs for about $9, and black, embroidered abayas, tailor-made, for girls under 10, for around $30. Other sites sell meat butchered to Islamic specs – halal meat, a principle that has now become an election campaign topic in France.

Topics pertinent to Muslims include spiritual guidance, exegeses of the Koran, advice on fasting, charity work, education – there are even online fatwas. Chats and forums answer questions like: Can Muslims eat crabs? Can they buy life insurance? And in the Arab world, where a majority of people are Muslim, whole conventions and seminars have been dedicated to the subject of the Internet – about the rising influence, for example, of Facebook and Twitter. So why, to top it all off, would Muslims need Salamworld?

“There are some 1.7 billion Muslims around the world. About 300 million use the Internet, and some half of those use social networks. Unfortunately, not a single one of those networks is run by Muslims,” says Jawus Selim Kurt, the PR director of Salamworld. Salamworld targets both Muslims and non-Muslims interested in the religion, and seeks to foster “harmony and peace” by strengthening moral (Islamic) values and the Islamic community, or umma.

In practical reality, umma doesn’t often pan out. Differences in culture and language are too great: a DJ in Istanbul isn’t going to have much in common with a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan. Salamworld expects computer technology will help smooth out those differences to create a virtual version of umma.

Offensive material like pornography will be filtered out. The site will also prohibit anything inciting terrorist activity or human rights violations. Chat rooms moderated, and online communities will be called upon to remove or report offensive content. But what exactly constitutes offensive? And wouldn’t young people in conservative countries like Egypt or repressive societies like Saudi Arabia look on this as an opportunity to form Internet friendships, to flirt – in short, to do exactly what it is so difficult or forbidden to do in real life?

“We aren’t a mosque,” says Kurt. “We don’t censor, and there will of course be the same kind of freedom users enjoy on other social networking sites.” It will be possible to upload videos, also photographs – albeit no nude shots. “Every freedom in the world has its boundaries,” he says.

An online study conducted by Internet giant Google found that of all the countries in the world, the one where people most often used the word “sex” for Internet searches was Islamic Pakistan. Wherever sex shops and prostitution are forbidden, the Internet becomes a major substitution outlet, the study concludes. It remains to be seen if young Muslims in the Russian Caucasus, in Algeria or in Malaysia really do start using squeaky clean Salamworld. Another possibility is that it becomes a network for religious families who want to keep their kids away from content they deem unsuitable.

For the project to work, it needs a high number of users because at base it’s more of a shopping mall than a political platform. “It’s a commercial project, we don’t support political ideas,” says Kurt. Interest in Salamworld is running high; there are already 100,000 registered users. So even if online umma doesn’t happen right away – or at all, as a marketing idea it’s certainly valid.