Kuwait is the only Gulf state where organised political Islam operates through an elected legislature rather than around one. The Islamic Constitutional Movement, associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, and Salafi blocs have contested seats since the 1980s, and Shia deputies have formed their own groupings; between them they have been strong enough to shape legislation and to force ministers out through parliamentary interpellation. The results are visible in law.
Article 2 of the constitution makes Sharia a main source of legislation rather than the only one, a formulation that has been the subject of repeated attempts at amendment. Personal status is administered under three separate codes, Sunni, Jaafari Shia and, for non Muslims, either their own community rules or a residual civil regime, so that inheritance and marriage depend on which register a citizen belongs to. Blasphemy provisions have been used against writers and against social media posts, and the 2012 case of a man sentenced to death for tweets about the Prophet, later reduced, drew international attention. For the expatriate majority the picture differs by faith: several Christian denominations hold legal recognition and worship in their own buildings, the National Evangelical Church dating to a mission of 1931, while Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist communities have no licensed premises at all and worship in private accommodation, a distinction that reflects the region's recognition of scriptural religions and not of others.