CAIRO - The ideology that reigns in Saudi Arabia comes into plain view on the Web site of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, where boys and girls sharing a swimming pool causes "mischief and evil" and bringing flowers to a hospital patient is to be discouraged because it's a foreign custom that "imitates Allah's adversaries."

And those fatwas, or religious rulings, come from the government-appointed body of clerics who are the guardians of the kingdom's ultraconservative Wahhabi school of Islam. But there's also a whole other world of independent clerics issuing their own interpretations, often contradictory, through the Web, TV stations and text messages, The Washington Post reports.

Now King Abdullah is moving to regain control over this abundance of fatwas. Under a royal decree issued in mid-August, only the official panel may issue the fatwas that answer every question of how pious Saudis should live their lives.

The result: In recent weeks, Web sites and a satellite station where clerics answered questions have been shut down or have voluntarily stopped issuing fatwas. One preacher was reprimanded for urging a boycott of a grocery chain for employing female cashiers.

Read the entire story at washingtonpost.com