LONDON, June 15: A British Muslim schoolgirl on Tuesday lost a legal battle to be allowed to wear strict Islamic dress in the classroom in a potentially key ruling on multi-faith education.

A judge at the High Court in London ruled that 15-year-old Shabina Begum did not have a legal right to wear a jilbab, a long, flowing gown covering her entire body except her hands and face.

The case closely echoes a recent controversy over the French government's decision to ban "religious symbols" such as Islamic headscarves in schools. The lawyer representing Begum - who has not attended school since September 2002 - had argued that the school's rules on dress amounted to "constructive exclusion".

This breached both British law and the European Convention on Human Rights, she said. But lawyers for Denbigh High School in Luton, north of London, where around 80 percent of pupils are Muslim, argued that Islamic pupils had a wide choice of other traditional clothing they could wear.

For girls, this included skirts, trousers or a traditional and popular South Asian form of attire called a shalwar kameez, comprising trousers under a dress-length tunic.

Only Begum had insisted on wearing the jilbab - which the school said posed a potential safety risk due to its length - and as such had effectively chosen to stay away, the court heard.

Judge Hugh Bennett ruled in favour of the school, saying the limits it imposed on what pupils could wear were "proportionate" and could not be deemed a breach of human rights.

"Although it appears that there is a body of opinion within the Muslim faith that only the jilbab meets the requirements of its dress code, there is also a body of opinion that the shalwar kameez does as well," he said.

"In my judgment, the adoption of the shalwar kameez by the defendant as school uniform for Muslim - and other faiths - female pupils was, and continues to be, a reasoned, balanced, proportionate policy."

Lawyer Iqbal Javed, speaking for the school, welcomed the judgment, saying the school's dress code had been endorsed by the local Council of Mosques. However it was condemned by Begum's lawyer, as well as the Muslim Council of Britain, which described the ruling as "very worrying and objectionable".

"The British Muslim community is a diverse community in terms of the interpretation and understanding of their faith and its practice," said deputy secretary general Abdul Bari.

"Within this broad spectrum, those that believe and choose to wear the jilbab and consider it to be part of their faith requirement for modest attire should be respected."

The court had been told that Begum, an academically strong pupil of Bangladeshi origin who hoped to become a doctor, had previously worn a shalwar kameez but developed a deepening interest in Islam.

When she arrived at the start of the academic year in September 2002 wearing a jilbab, she was told to go home and change, but refused. Ultimately, this was her decision, judge Bennett ruled. "It was at all times open to her to change her mind, dress in the school uniform and return to school," he said. -AFP