Mosques are not permitted to allow women inside due to a fatwa issued in August 2004, by the Tajik Council of Ulema, or scholars – the country's highest Muslim body.[549] Part of the reasoning for this is that Tajikistan has 3,980 mosques, but very few are designed to allow men and women to worship separately, a practice Islam generally requires. The fatwa was not strictly enforced and more recently, it has been reported that the Ulema Council will relax the ban.[550]