Islam & the Social Origins of FGM

This page addresses the question of why some people, both today and throughout history, engage in Female Genital Mutilation.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM for short) is commonly associated with Islam: recent data suggests that about 80% of FGM is carried out by Muslims^[1], and that, considered globally, about 20% of Muslim females are subjected to the practice. It is tempting to conclude that Muslims engage in FGM because the Prophet Muhammad decreed favourably on the practice in four hadiths. This conclusion is made all the more tempting by the fact that discussions as to whether or not FGM is Islamic are conducted as if the question were resolved simply by determining whether Muhammad decreed favourably (or otherwise) on FGM in the Sunnah and in the Qur'an.

But social phenomena don't only happen because powerful men decree them. Social phenomena can happen because other social phenomena cause them. Pollution increased in the 19th Century England because the Industrial revolution happened. It is unlikely that many 19^th century industrialists intended their factories to increase pollution. But their factories did increase pollution, and did so reliably and predictably. We rightly consider certain forms of pollution as being an inherent property of 19^th Century industrialism, despite it being an unintended by-product.

Likewise, even if FGM were nowhere mentioned in the Sunnah, there is reason to think that Muslims would nevertheless be practicing FGM at a higher rate than non-Muslims, since Islam tends to reproduce the conditions that make FGM useful or necessary.

The political scientist Gerry Mackie, in his paper ‘Ending Footbinding and Infibulation: A Convention Account'^[2] identifies polygyny as creating conditions in which Chastity and Fidelity Assurance Practices solve real problems faced by girls, the parents of girls, and other members of the community. Chastity and Fidelity Assurance practices are technologies, institutions and behaviours that act to preserve the sexual purity (whether actual or reputational) of girls and women. Examples of Chastity Assurance practices are footbinding, veiling, gender segregation, arranged marriages, child marriage, chaperoning, 'honour' culture, brideprice (mahr) and FGM.

Gerry Mackie makes no reference to the decrees of powerful men or prophets in his analysis of how polygyny gives rise to Chastity and Fidelity Assurance practices; likewise his explanation of how such practices become 'locked-in' - persisting long after the originating conditions have lapsed. Mackie's work demonstrates that FGM is not caused not only by Muhammad's decrees, but also by social factors - laws, traditions, institutions, systems, beliefs - that make FGM in some way 'useful' or 'necessary'.

In brief: there are two

• it is a practice that solves certain problems caused by polygyny;
• Muhammad, in inventing Islam, codified and sacralisied the norms, values, beliefs and institutions of Medina under his rule (and to a lesser extent of pre-Islamic Mecca and Judaism). This included the sacralisation of FGM and the causes of FGM - polygyny in particular. In doing this he ensured that FGM and its causes would persist long after they would normally have disappeared.

Who Practices FGM? Statistics

Who practices FGM?

Pre-Islamic & non-Islamic FGM

We will also consider that that FGM predates the origins of Islam. This suggests that FGM has its origin in social factors as much as in the decrees of Mohammed.

But any explanation for the existence of FGM has to account for the existence of four groups:

1. Muslims who practice FGM
2. Muslims who don't practice FGM
3. non-Muslims who practice FGM
4. non-Muslims who don't practice FGM

The existence of the third group (non-Muslims who practice FGM) undermines the idea that Muslims engage in FGM simply because Muhammad decreed favourably on the practice. However, most non-Muslims who practice FGM today do so as a consequence of living for centuries under the dominance of an FGM-practicing Islamic culture - the most notable example being the Egyptian Copts. For the Copts, maintaining the practice of FGM has been a centuries-old strategy to minimise persecution and stigma from a Muslim majority who would treat 'uncut' women, their families and communities as impure and contaminating. So the existence today of non-Muslims who practice FGM does not necessarily undermine the hypothesis that Muslims engage in FGM simply because Muhammad decreed favourably on the practice. The Copts, for example, practice FGM because their Muslim neighbours require them to do so.

But we should also noteremember that non-Muslims existed before Islam and some of these practiced FGM. Why? Why would people engage in this practice

The Origins and Causes of FGM

intro

Gerry Mackie's 'Convention Hypothesis'

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Problems with Gerry Mackie's 'Convention Hypothesis'

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Islam as the sacralisation of polygyny and the consequences of polygyny

FGM: a Solution to Problems Caused by Islamic Doctrine

intro

Polygyny and its consequences

Mackie - plus corrections and extensions

Child Marriage

polygyny gives rise to child marriage, drives down age of FGM

Mahr (Islamic Brideprice)

putting financial value on perceived chastity of girls and women...

The Polygynous Family

less emotional investment in children, esp girls, more financial investment at stake

Cultural Congruence

other brutal practices relativise and make acceptable violenc of FGM (MGM, halal slaughter, wife beating, violence of Qur'an, jihad...)

FGM and the uses of Trauma

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