KUWAIT CITY, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - Plans to build a mosque in Kuwait for Bohra Muslims -- an offshoot of Shiite Islam -- have triggered a row between liberals and Islamists in the Sunni-ruled Gulf state.
Kuwait's Minister of Islamic Affairs Abdullah al-Maatuq is under fire for pushing forward the mosque project, even though it has already been rejected by the emirate's municipal council.
MP Waleed al-Tabtabai of the hardline Salafi group on Tuesday threatened to quiz the minister in parliament if he does not withdraw his request to allocate 6,500 square metres (70,000 square feet) of government land for the mosque.
Maatuq said he made the request on behalf of the Kuwaiti cabinet which recently approved a decision to grant Bohras government land for the project.
But the municipal council's technical committee last week rejected the request on the basis that none of estimated 25,000 Bohras in the Gulf state is a Kuwaiti national.
Tabtabai said the mosque plan violates "Sharia (Islamic law), country laws and national interests," and questioned whether the Bohras, an offshoot of Shiite branch of Islam, were true Muslims.
Several other Islamist lawmakers and hardline clerics welcomed the rejection and cast doubt on the Bohra faith.
But the Kuwait Human Rights Association said the council's rejection violated the constitution which stipulates religious freedom, and called on Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Mohammad al-Ahmad al-Sabah to revoke the "irresponsible" decision.
It noted that Bohras have mosques in the neighbouring states of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain as well as places of worship in the United States and Britain.
Kuwait is a conservative Sunni-ruled state but about one-third of its native population of one million are Shiites. It also has about 2.2 million foreign residents most of them Asians and Arabs.
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