Rula Dashti, who does not wear the hijab, challenges the requirement that women must comply with Sharia rules to exercise their political rights. Women’s head covers stir up debate among Islamic scholars.

Kuwait City (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Kuwaiti female lawmaker Rula Dashti (pictured) wants to amend the Gulf state’s electoral law in order to scrap a requirement that women must comply with Sharia guidelines. Her action comes at a time when a number of Muslim scholars are split over the issue of the Islamic head cover.

The rules were introduced four years ago when parliament voted to grant women full political rights, adding a precondition that both women voters and candidates must comply with regulations dictated by Islamic law (Sharia).

The law does not explain the nature of the regulations, but last week the emirate's Fatwa Department ruled that under Islamic law, it is an obligation for Muslim women to wear the hijab head cover.

Although the fatwa, or religious edict, was general in nature and did not specifically refer to Kuwait's election law, it triggered conflicting reactions in parliament.

Conservative lawmakers called on female MPs and a minister to comply with the ruling whilst liberal and female legislators stressed that the fatwa was not binding since it did not come from the constitutional court.

“The fatwa is not binding on Kuwaiti society. The only reference for us is the constitution,” Dashti said. For her, including Sharia regulations in the electoral law violates the constitution.

Rula Dashti is one of four Kuwaiti women who made history in May when they won seats in parliament for the first time.

Two of the women MPs wear the hijab whilst Dashti and Aseel Al-Awadhi do not. Education Minister Mudhi al-Hmoud also does not wear the hijab.

This debate in Kuwait echoes a broader one over the Islamic head cover for women.

Fatwas in favour or against the headgear, whatever its forms, have been issued by a number of Islamic scholars.

Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy is the grand sheikh of Al-Azhar University and is considered by many to be the highest authority in Sunni Islam. He recently said that students and teachers who wear ‘niqab’ in female-only classrooms should be barred because this kind of veil is un-Islamic.

In Canada, a Muslim organisation has called on the Canadian government to ban the ‘niqab’, claiming it was a “medieval and misogynist symbol of extremism.”

The Grand Mufti of Dubai disagrees. In his opinion, the “niqab is never related to fanaticism or terrorism”, adding, “Muslim women have never been forced to wear ‘niqab’.”

Forcing any Muslim woman to abandon the ‘niqab’ would thus be “utter disrespect to her and to her creed, culture and traditions.”

• kuwait
• hijab
• niqab
• headgear
• electoral
• law
• sharia
• guidelines
• fatwa