Kuwait City, Kuwait - A Kuwaiti-produced television soap opera highlighting a Shiite form of temporary marriage known as "Mutaa" was bound to be controversial in the Muslim world, even without the title "Sins have a price."
The 30-episode serial prodded what has long been a sensitive difference between the two main branches of Islam -- Shiites and Sunnis -- and struck a nerve among Shiites in the Emirate and farther afield.
"The serial serves the enemies of Islam who are conspiring against the unity of Muslims ... to achieve the goals of evil forces," said prominent Kuwaiti Shiite cleric Mohammad Baqer al-Mahri.
"The screening of the serial would stir the fire of sectarianism that eats up everything, and incite hatred and divisions," he said in a statement.
The station had planned to broadcast the soap opera during the holy month of Ramadan, which started for most Shiites on Thursday, but the litany of criticism -- from both clerics and MPs -- prompted the Dubai-based Saudi-owned MBC channel to scrap the series just three days before it was due to run.
The Mutaa, or temporary marriage, is particular to Shiite Islam and allows a man and a woman to wed for a limited period of time from under one hour to any number of years they choose.
This form of marriage is banned in the Sunni branch of Islam.
Shiites charged that besides stoking sectarianism, the serial insults and distorts their faith by mocking temporary marriage, a valid, sanctioned concept in Shiism despite the controversy and social taboos surrounding the practice.
The series gives "a total distortion of Shiism ... It also incites sectarianism" between Sunnis and Shiites, leading Kuwaiti Shiite MP Adnan Abdulsamad told AFP. "It is very provocative and comes at a sensitive time amid the sectarian tension in the region."
The sentiment was echoed by Shiite MP Saleh Ashour.
"This would spark more disputes especially amid the spread of sectarianism in the region, evident by events in Iraq and Lebanon," he said in a statement.
MBC denied that the programme -- written, produced and directed by Kuwaitis, and with most of the cast also Kuwaitis -- "includes any deliberate insult to anyone.
"It tackles the behaviour of men and women who misinterpreted and exploited religion ... It does not criticise the (concept of) Mutaa marriage but the way some people misuse it," the channel said in a statement.
That view was not shared by many Shiites not only in Kuwait but also in Bahrain and in Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia, where some protests had been planned if the series was not dropped.
"It deliberately makes it look like our girls are practising prostitution," said Shiite Justice and Peace Alliance official Abdulwahed Khalfan.
The differences between Sunnis and Shiites on Mutaa marriage date back to the early days of Islam.
The Mutaa form of marriage was common among Arab tribes before Islam and was permitted by Prophet Mohammad especially after his first companions migrated from Mecca to Medina.
Sunnis claim that the prophet later prohibited Mutaa marriages. Shiites insist he never did so and that it was banned by the second Muslim Caliph, Omar bin al-Khattab, several years after Mohammad's death.
The main differences between Mutaa and permanent marriages are that the first is made for a preset period of time, does not require the husband to spend on his wife and ends automatically at the expiry date.
Most Sunnis consider Mutaa unions a form of adultery, whereas Shiites argue they are as legal as conventional marriages.
In Mutaa marriages, a man and a woman can wed with their simple consent without the need for witnesses or the approval of the woman's father or guardian, except if the woman is still a virgin.
Sunnis contend that a marriage cannot be legal if it is limited to a specific duration or if it is undertaken with the intention to divorce.
To account for what are viewed as modern-day needs, some Sunni clerics have permitted a new form of union known as "Mesyar" weddings, under which the husband is not required to live permanently with his wife under one roof, but can visit her in her house.
Mesyar must however be concluded in the same manner as a permanent marriage, with a proper contract and witnesses, and must be open-ended.
Husbands in Mesyar marriages are not required to spend on their wives, but have to pay the rest of dowry and other benefits to the wife in case of divorce.
In both Mutaa and Mesyar unions, the husband is required to provide subsistence for any children.
A Muslim man is allowed to have up to four wives at a time and a Mesyar union counts towards this. A Mutaa marriage does not count as one of the four.
Many people see the two forms of marriage as similar in social terms, though each community defends its own.
Liberal Kuwaiti columnist Abdullatif al-Duaij, writing in Al-Qabas newspaper, criticised both Mutaa and Mesyar as outdated and "demeaning to women," though he acknowledged they still remain part of people's civil rights.