Hullabaloo over Hijab in Kuwait

A hijab, as commonly understood in the English-speaking world, is the type of head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women, but can also refer to modest Muslim styles of dress in general. The Arabic word literally means curtain or cover (noun), based on the root meaning "to cover, to veil, to shelter". Most Islamic legal systems define this type of modest dressing as covering everything except the face and hands in public.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/kuwait/6307598/Kuwaiti-women-MPs-refuse-to-wear-hijab-in-parliament.html

The following article tells us about how Rola Dashti and Aseel Al-Awadhi, who were among the first four women to elected to Kuwait's National Assembly in May, have angered their Islamist colleagues by refusing to wear hijab in parliament. They might be accused of flouting the sharia(It refers to the legal framework within which the public and private aspects of life are regulated for those living in a legal system based on Islamic principles of jurisprudence and for Muslims living outside the domain. Sharia deals with many aspects of day-to-day life, including politics, economics, banking, business, contracts, family, sexuality, hygiene, and social issues.), but that isn't stopping them from protesting against what they think is not a required custom. In fact, one of them has gone a step ahead by demanding the scrapping of an amendment to electoral regulations that says they have to observe sharia in parliament.

A statement by Dashti, "you can't force a woman to wear hijab", might have created controversy in Kuwait, but it is good to know that women still are able to raise their voices as and when the need arises. Hopefully, history will be created with the implementation of this rule, or at least scrapping of the previous one.