On 1 September, the North African desert country Mauritania will have an election for its national assembly. 146 members will be elected for one- or four-year terms. Most of its population is nomadic, but a third of Mauritanians are registered voters. It is one of the world's poorest nations, and one of the most religiously restricted. Sunni Islam and Sharia law have ruled them over a thousand years. The government prohibits conversion to Christianity. Those who do so face the death penalty, and must not enter non-Muslim households. A caste system grants privileges to certain groups. They marginalise darker-skinned Mauritanians or anyone who holds a worldview other than Islam. The Islamic terror group AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) operates in Mauritania.