the exact date of the arrival of the egyptian brotherhood legions into kuwait is well-known. it is also a wellknown fact who was the fi rst egyptian among them to land in kuwait. however, after the world war ii kuwait opened up and some of them took this opportunity in 1947 to open a branch of the muslim brotherhood organization in kuwait. because the kuwaitis hated the word ‘ b r o t h e r h o o d ’ and their opposition to any partisan organizations, the brotherhood branch in kuwait was opened under the name islamic guidance society which offi cially announced its establishment 5 years later. in spite of the fact that the law for establishing the association confi rmed that it is religious, it soon became involved in politics, especially after changing its name. during the same period, the government established the religious institute (60 years ago) to ‘train’ imams, mosque muezzins, religious teachers, marriage contract clerks, and others. for some reason the teaching was based on the principles of three schools, hanafi was not among them. the hanbali, shafei, malek and hanafi schools are the four traditional sunni islamic schools of jurisprudence. the religious institute expanded over time, established branches, and began accepting students, even students of both sexes from other countries, and provided them with lodging and boarding and even cash allowances. after sixty years, hundreds of holy quran memorizing competitions, dozens of activities of religious associations, thousands of graduates from sharia colleges in kuwait and those sent to cairo and saudi arabia, the state’s position on imams, mosque preachers and muezzins is shameful. ninety percent of those who enrolled in secondary schools or university for religious studies, or those who were sent to study abroad, had their own goal just to obtain a certifi cate and take up nonreligious jobs. after all these years we have succeeded in producing 130 imams who cannot cover the needs of one hundred mosques (kuwait is known to have 1,600 mosques). does this situation satisfy anyone? it does not. it hurts to see what is happening in this country. is not there anyone who asks why all this spending on religious teaching, if a majority of them will take up jobs which have nothing to do with religion or rather mosques? in an unexpected move, the legislative and legal affairs committee of the national assembly voted in favor of refusing to distinguish the memorizers of the holy quran in the job degrees than others considering that it is better to take care of the memorization of the holy quran as a religious goal rather than a fi nancial reward. on the other hand, the prison administration reduces the period of jail terms of prisoners who excel in memorizing the holy quran and release them. this is inhuman discrimination. why those who have diffi culty in memorizing but have good conduct are punished by longer imprisonment and reward those who are capable of memorizing better than the others. they may have bad history. email:
