Chairman of Kazakhstan’s Agency for Religion on wearing hijabs 29 сентября 2011, 16:38

©RIA Novosti/Maksim Bogodvid

Kairat Lama Sharif, Chairman of the Kazakhstan’s Agency for Religion, once again commented on wearing hijabs today, September 29, Tengrinews.kz reports. “We do not broach the subject of wearing hijabs in the national legislation. This issue should not be raised in the legislation. We can dissuade female Muslims from wearing hijabs only through setting forward arguments. We have been and will be educating [Muslims on religion-related clothes]”, Kairat Lama Sharif told journalists today after the draft law on religion had been passed by the national Senate. Tengrinews.kz earlier reported that Lama Sharif Kairat Kayirbekuly, the Chairman of the Kazakhstan’s Agency for Religion, does not consider hijab a major attribute of being a Muslim. “Wearing a hijab is not an indicator of whether a person is Muslim or not (…) It is more of an attribute of the Arabic culture, bedouin culture. Allowing Kazakh women to wear a hijab, to some extent we are losing our national identity”, he said June 8. Lama Sharif Kairat Kayirbekuly was appointed Chairman of the Kazakhstan’s Agency for Religion June 7. Before that he served as Kazakhstan’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The Agency was launched May 21, 2011.

• religion
• Kazakhstan
• Kazakh
• Islam
• hijab