Hijab is an issue in Muslim Azerbaijan.

BAKU, June, 3, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – An Azeri court is looking into a lawsuit filed by a hijab-clad Muslim teacher for being sacked from work over claims of violating her school secular by-laws.

Shaela Ismagil Alieva was fired last March from the Istedad secondary school in the eastern Azeri city of Sumengaytin over insisting to wear hijab.

The school explained its arbitrary decision by arguing it was "unacceptable to have a veiled teacher who teaches the Darwin secular thought", during a visit of a number of Western delegates to the building.

"The Muslim teacher sued the school over its arbitrary decision to sack her and the verdict will be declared on June 8," an activist of the DEVAMM human rights group told IslamOnline.net Friday, June 3.

"After the court's final ruling, Shaela will be able to return to her work," he added.

The rights activist maintained that the school decision to dismiss the Muslim teacher was in counter to the country's Constitution article on the citizens' freedom of expression and worship.

Azerbaijan is an ex-Soviet state where Muslims make up nearly 93.4 percent of the 8 million population, but it is a secular regime.

Following the school decision to sack her, Shaela said she was determined to defend her right to wear hijab.

"Hijab is a religious duty, not a sign of fashion," she has told a local Azeri daily.

Islam sees hijab as an obligatory code of dress, not a religious symbol displaying one’s affiliations.

The school decision to fire the Muslim teacher has caused furor in the former Soviet republic.

Some parties favored the decision, claiming that it was up to the school to sack any member who violates its secular by-laws.

Other parties insisted that the school decision has violated the religious freedom of the Muslim teacher.

After long decades under the Soviet communist rule, Azerbaijan won independence in 1991.

The country joined the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) at the end of 1990s.

Under the Soviet rule, mosques were closed down and Muslims were banned from performing prayers in public places or traveling to Saudi Arabia to perform the fifth pillar of Islam.