Article 2: “Islam is the official religion of the State and is a basic source of legislation. No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.”

This clause is particularly controversial because it suggests that Iraq will be built on Sharia, which could undermine the rights of women and non-Muslims. Under article 90 experts on Sharia will have seats in the Supreme Federal Court.

Article 3: “Iraq is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-sect country. It is part of the Islamic world and its Arab people are part of the Arab nation.”

This is bound to infuriate Arab nationalists, who fear that Kurds and Shias are trying to undermine Iraq’s central place in the Arab world.

Article 7: “Entities or trends that advocate, instigate, justify or propagate racism, terrorism, takfir (declaring someone an infidel), sectarian cleansing, are banned, especially the Saddamist Baath Party in Iraq and its symbols, under any name.”

This passage has infuriated the Sunni population, which includes many former Baath party members.

Article 110: “The federal government will administer oil and gas extracted from current fields in co-operation with the governments of the producing regions and provinces on condition that the revenues will be distributed fairly in a manner compatible with the demographical distribution all over the country. A quota should be defined for a specified time for affected regions that were deprived in an unfair way by the former regime or later on, in a way to ensure balanced development in different parts of the country. This should be regulated by law.”

This is arguably the most contentious article. The wording might be vague but it clearly stipulates that oil wealth will be redistributed to the main oil-producing areas, the Kurdish north and Shia south. It has also leaves open who can claim rights to the huge untapped oil wealth.

Article 114: “The regions comprise one province or more, and two regions or more have the right to join into one region.”

This could open the way for Kurds in the north to expand their autonomous region to include the disputed oil-rich province of Kirkuk and allow Shias to create a separate entity in the south.

Article 129: “The region’s government is responsible for all that is required to manage the region, in particular establishing and organising internal security forces for the region such as police, security and regional guards.”

Some see this as endorsing the de facto creation of sectarian militias, which are explicitly banned in Article 9.

Article 151: “A proportion of no less than 25 per cent of the seats in the Council of Representatives (parliament) is specified for the participation of women.”

This proportion of women MPs is higher than most Western assemblies, but women fear that their rights will be undermined by enshrining Islamic law in the constitution.

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