BAGHDAD, February 11 (IslamOnline.net) – Iraq’s main Sunni groups renewed rejection of the separation between state and Islam in the country’s constitution, saying Shari’ah (Islamic law) should be the main source of the country’s legislation.

The Transitional National Assembly of 275 members, who would be picked by the general elections held January 30, is to debate and draft the permanent Iraqi constitution by August.

The Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), the highest religious authority in Iraq, stressed that the constitution should embrace the Islamic law in a country where Muslims make up more than 90 percent of the population.

“There is an Islamic political Shari`ah related to international agreements, for example,” said Omar Ragheb, a spokesman for AMS.

“The political vision should thus be Shari’ah-based, in order for AMS to decide whether to participate in drafting the constitution or not.”

Ragheb was responding, in statements to IOL, to foreign press reports claiming that the AMS was not, in principle, against separating religion from state.

The prominent group was not officially invited to help write down the constitution, which is the task of the elected members of the Transitional National Assembly.

But the UN secretary general’s envoy to Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, made a recent invitation during talks with AMS Secretary General Harith Al-Dari.

Al-Dari gave a qualified acceptance, saying a timetable for foreign forces withdrawal from Iraq should be laid first.

Press reports carried Sunni threats of using veto to kill off the drafted constitution, which should be put to vote in a referendum in October for ratification.

According to new rules agreed last year, the referendum would fail if two-thirds of eligible voters in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces give it the thumbs-down.

The Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni political group, also rejects the separation of religion and state in the new constitution.

“We want a constitution founded on Islam and accepted by all Iraqi parties,” the party’s secretary general, Tariq Al-Hashimi, told IslamOnline.net.

The party officials had earlier highlighted it would play no role in the new government or assembly but later said it still plans to help draft the constitution.

Adnan Soliman, a spokesman for the Sunnis Congress - which groups independent Sunni figures – said separating state and religion is “against Islamic culture we had been bred on.”

The statements came after a leading Shiite scholar declared the same message.

“We will accept no compromise,” said a statement by Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Ishaq Al-Fayad.

The separation of religion and state must be “completely rejected,” said Al-Fayad, one of the four top Shiite scholars in Iraq.

A spokesman for Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the highest Shiite religious authority, later denied issuing a statement to the same effect, only stressing that the new constitution “should respect the Islamic identity of Iraqis”.

Ballot counting is expected to take several more days. Partial tallies show a coalition of Sistani-backed political parties will be the largest bloc and could capture a wide majority in Iraq's new assembly.

The 275-member assembly is to appoint a temporary government and write a constitution.

Leaders of the coalition stressed during the campaign that the Shiites would seek a broad-based government including rival Sunnis.