Female Genital Mutilation in Islam

FGM: History,

Female Genital Mutilation in Islam

The discussion, debate and analysis of FGM tends to focus exclusively on the question of whether it is Islamic or not. This is not surprising. It arises partly because the majority of Muslim don't practice FGM and have, over the past half century, become troubled by the sizeable minority of Muslims that do practice it. The focus on the doctrinal issue may also be in part, because it offer a shortcut to explaining the existence of FGM in the Islamic world: if a mother cites her religion as the reason for having her daughter mutilated, and that mother's imam decree the practice as required by Islam, then it feels that something has been demonstrated and proved.

However, as the section FGM before Islam demonstrates, FGM existed before Islam, and there is no evidence that pre-Islamic FGM was religiously-motivated. Thus FGM can not solely a religious practice - there must have been other reasons for its existence in pre-Islamic societies.

It is all too natural to consider FGM as nothing more than an arbitrarily cruel misogynistic practice. However, it is actually a solution to certain social problems - albeit problems that not all societies suffer from, and that no society need suffer from. The section the origins of FGM will consider what these 'problems' are, and why they arise in some societies. The next section (Islamic Doctrine that creates social conditions favourable to FGM) shows how Islam doctrine reproduces the very factors that made FGM useful or necessary in some pre-Islamic societies. A third section (Functions of FGM) considers how the social purposes of FGM is realised through the experience of the individual child undergoing FGM.

Female Genital Mutilation (Arabic: ختان المرأة) is the practice of cutting away and altering the external female genitalia for ritual or religious purposes. It can involve both or either Clitoridectomy and Excision. Clitoridectomy is the amputation of part or all of the clitoris (or the removal of the clitoral prepuce). Excision is the cutting away of either or both the inner or outer labia. A third practice, Infibulation (or Pharaonic circumcision), is the paring back of the outer labia, whose cut edges are then stitched together to form, once healed, a seal that covers both the openings of the vagina and the urethra. Infibulation usually includes clitoridectomy.

UNICEF's 2016 report into FGM estimates that in the 30 countries surveyed at least 200 million girls and women have undergone FGM.^[1] Assuming a world population of 7.9 billion, this means that about one in twenty girls or women world-wide have undergone FGM. About 80% of this FGM is attributable to Muslims.^[2] Most of the remaining 20% is attributable to non-Muslims living in FGM-practicing Islamic societies (e.g. the Egyptian Copts^[3]), or to non-Islamic societies that have been hubs of the Islamic slave trade (e.g. Ethiopia and Eritrea^[4]). Assuming a world population of Muslims of 1.7 billion, this means that at least one in five (20%) Muslim women, and about one in eighty (1.28%) non-Muslim women are genitally mutilated.

FGM predates Islam. The Banu Quraysh, Muhammad's native tribe, appear to have engaged in the practice (see FGM before Islam). Muhammad maintained the practice after migrating to Medina and is recorded as approving of the practice in four hadith. Two other hadith record the sahabah (Companions of Mohammed) engaging in the practice. (see FGM in the Hadith)

The Qur'an contains no explicit mention of FGM. However, Quran 30:30, by exhorting Muslims to 'adhere to the fitrah' indirectly, but ineluctably exhorts Muslims to engage in FGM. (see FGM in the Qur'an)

The FGM hadith give very few clues as to the nature of the practice they approve. Hence the nature, incidence and distribution of FGM varies between countries and communities. The most significant determining factor appears to be the presiding school of Islam (fiqh). Other factors include the culture's level of anxiety around female sexuality, its proximity to Islamic slave-trade routes (Infibulation is associated with the transportation of slaves), and the nature and degree of Christian influence ( see FGM in Islamic law).

Whilst most modern fatwas favour or defend FGM, there has been, over the past half century, a growing unease in the Islamic world concerning the practice (due to a growing concern on the part of organisations such as the UN and UNICEF). This has resulted in some fatwas critical of FGM. It appears that the earliest fatwa clearly critical of FGM was issued in 1984.^[5] (see Modern Fatwas and FGM as Un-Islamic)

FGM before Islam

Islamic sources

The hadith 'One Who Circumcises Other Ladies' suggests that FGM was practiced by the Banu Quraysh, Mohammed's native tribe, and that the FGM reported in the Hadith (which therefore took place after Mohammed's migration to Medina) was a practice carried over from pre-Islamic Mecca.

The Hadith tells how, prior to the battle of Uhud, Hamza, one of Mohammed’s companions, taunts the Meccan warrior, Siba. Hamza implies that Siba is like ‘Ibn Um Anmar’ – a woman who was a known circumciser of women. The more descriptive phrase muqteh al-basr – ‘one who cuts clitorises‘ – is used rather than the usual khitan.

This taunt suggests that clitoridectomy was practiced by the Quraysh, and that it was a role reserved for women, probably of low-status, hence its insulting nature when directed against a warrior. The taunt could only be effective if it humiliated Siba in the eyes of both his fellow Meccan warriors and also the Muslim warriors. Thus its use implies that members of both camps had knowledge of the practice and a shared culture of clitoridectomy. The fact that a circumciser of women could be famous (or notorious) also suggests that it was an established practice with the Meccan Quraysh.

Non-Islamic sources

There is evidence that FGM was practiced before the birth of Muhammad in the Middle East and along the African coast of the Red Sea. The following are listed in roughly chronological order.

There are reports that some Egyptian mummies show signs of FGC. However this appears to be disputed.

A spell or prayer found on an Egyptian coffin dating from sometime between 1991–1786 BC appears to refer to an uncircumcised girl.

An analysis of this hieroglyph by the Egyptologist Saphinaz-Amal Naguib suggests that the procedure referred to was not the infibulation that has become commonly associated with Ancient Egypt (hence ‘pharaonic’ circumcision), but rather clitoridectomy. This seems to be confirmed by other later Greek descriptions of the Egyptian practice.

A fragment referring to a fifth-century B.C. history by Xanthos of Lydia (Western Asiatic Turkey) uses the word 'castrated' in relation to women. It may refer to FGM, or some method of permanently sterilizing women.

'There are several classical references from the geographer Agatharchides of Cnidus (fl. 2nd century BC., who identified a tribe living on the west coast of the Red Sea which excised their women in the manner of the Egyptians, and that another group cut of in infancy with razors the whole portion that others circumcise'. ^[6]

A papyrus dated from 163 BC refers to the operation being performed on girls in Memphis, Egypt, to coincide with the time when they received their dowries.

Strabo (64 or 63 BC – c. AD 24), a Turkish-born Greek geographer, observed the practice whilst travelling up the Nile.

Another passage from Strabo suggests that Jews practiced FGM some time after Moses’ death.

The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BC – 50 AD) reports in his ‘Questions on Genesis’^[7]:

The Greek physician Galen (129-c. 200 AD) notes that the Romans developed a procedure which involved slipping fibulae (the latin word for ‘brooches’) through the labia majora of female slaves as a form of contraception. He also notes in his ‘Introductio sive Medicus’:

Greek physician, Soranus of Ephesus (1st/2nd century AD. Ephesus was a Greek colony found on the west coast of Turkey) also noted the same procedure. One of the titles in his manual of gynecology is ‘On an excessively large clitoris’. The actual text of this chapter has not survived. However there exists a translation, probably from the the sixth century AD:

Caelius Aurelianus, a fifth-century AD physician from Sicca Veneria (modern el-Kef in Tunisia), synthesised much of Soranus’s work. In a chapter entitled ‘On an excessively large clitoris’, he wrote:

Closer to the time of Mohammed, the Byzantine Greek physician Aëtius of Amida (fl. mid-fifth century to mid-sixth century. Amida was located where modern Diyarbakır now stands in east Turkey) describes a clitoridectomy, citing the physician Philomenes:

Paulus of Aegina (Aegina is one of the Saronic islands of Greece), a 7th Century AD urologic surgeon, was something of an expert and gives his version of how to perform the procedure (the word ‘nympha’ usually refers the labia minora, but here seems to be being also used of the clitoris):

The origins of FGM

The roots of FGM as lying in polygyny, particularly the kind of extreme polygyny that existed at the heart of empires, where some men could become powerful and wealthy enough to be able to afford harems of hundreds of concubines (the word 'concubine' is a euphemism for sex-slave).^[8][9][10]

In a monogamous marriage a husband and wife can spend much time together (and thus better monitor each others fidelity), can grow close to one another, and their sexual and emotional needs are more-or-less proportional. In polygynous societies the rich and high-status men who can afford to keep multiple wives face a problem guaranteeing the fidelity of their many wives. And the more they have the greater that problem becomes. A polygynous man may have anything from two to a thousand 'concubines' whom he must satisfy emotionally and sexually, provide with offspring and keep faithful. If the needs of his wives are not satisfied, they will be tempted to look elsewhere, and this may result in the high-status man rearing children that are not his own.

Consequently, polygynous societies evolve technologies and practices which assure the chastity of both wives and potential wives.

• harems keep 'concubines' locked away, guarded by eunuchs;
• footbinding (as once practiced by the Chinese) reduces the physical independence of girls and women;
• chaperoning and gender segregation eliminate interactions between the sexes;
• arranged and child marriages obviate the dangers that romance and courtship pose to a girl's chastity and reputation;
• veiling makes girls less interesting and identifiable to males;
• FGM reduces women's capacity for sexual pleasure both physically (through the removal of the clitoris and labia, or sealing the vagina shut) and mentally (through the effects of trauma).

Hypergyny is the urge for women to marry into higher strata of society. Polygynous societies are extremely hypergynous. It is considered preferable to be the nth wife of a rich man than the only wife of a poor man. This is because in polygynous societies

• a married high-status man remains available to further marriages (unlike in monogamous societies);
• the only acceptable role for a girl to aspire to is that of 'wife'. A girl can only better her life by marrying a rich man;
• the wealth gradient tends to be steeper – the poor poorer, the rich richer ;
• marriages involve the payment of a brideprice by the groom (or his family) to the bride (or her family), which will be higher from a rich man than from a poor man;
• marriage to high status men is highly advantageous to the bride's family, who will benefit from the bride-price and from having a high-status male as a relative.

To stand a chance of making an 'advantageous' marriage girls must meet the requirements of the high-status polygynous men. She, and her family, must persuade him that she is 'pure', chaste and will be faithful. They demonstrate this by adopting (or having their daughter adopt) the Chastity Assurance practices required by polygynous elite man, whether it be FGM or other such practices listed above. The intensely hypergynous nature of polygynous societies means that the marriage requirements of high-status polygynous men cascade down through the ranks of society, and are rapidly adopted by all families.

In polygynous societies the marriage market heavily favours polygynous elite men, because they are relatively few elite polygynous men whilst there are many lower-ranking potential brides. Low-ranking families must therefore compete with each other and persuade higher-ranking men to marry their daughters. It is not enough to simply adopt the elite’s marriage-practices, the daughter has to be made to stand out from the crowd of other candidates hoping to make a hypergynous match.

A girl’s fidelity, purity and chastity becomes her most important selling-point and the more spectacularly she can advertise this the better. Families therefore seek to make conspicuous the ‘honour’ of their lines, the purity of their females, and their commitment to the values of chastity, fidelity and modesty. In a process analogous to Sexual Selection in Nature, female modesty takes on a competitive value rather than an intrinsic one and this provokes an ‘inflation’ of modesty practices and attitudes: “one wrong word about my sister and I will kill you”…”the smaller the foot, the better the family”….”the more extreme the cutting the better the girl’s reputation”…”the more harshly a family punishes its daughters’ immodesty, the more likely she is to be pure”…

FGM becomes a symbol, a proxy, for chastity and fidelity. Girls and families who do not observe these Chastity Assurance practices are stigmatised as 'impure', contaminating and guaranteed to be unfaithful if anyone should have the misfortune to marry them. They are 'untouchable' and suffer discrimination, ostracism and persecution. Only the daughters of the poorest families, who can not afford to engage in such practices, remain unmutilated. They serve as public demonstrations of the ignominy that results from not following modesty practices. The avoidance of stigma becomes as much an incentive to mutilate one's daughters as making a good marriage.

The universality of FGM within a local intramarrying community generates folk beliefs: that women must have excessively lascivious natures to require such scrupulous guarding and restraint; that the clitoris will grow to the length of a goose’s neck if not removed during childhood; that contact with the clitoris kills, be it the baby during its birth or the husband during intercourse; that an 'uncut' vulva is ugly; that FGM enhances a woman’s facial beauty; that FGM improves a woman's health and hygiene; that a ‘cut’ vulva is more pleasurable to the husband; that FGM enhances fertility. These folk beliefs are self-enforcing because the believed consequences of violating them are sufficiently grave that their truth is never tested – they are ‘belief traps’. This is the case not only with those folk beliefs which threaten death, but also those which postulate the un-marriageability of the uncut girl.

FGM persists even if its originating conditions lapse, and even when the majority of the community wish to abandon the practice. In a community where it is a pre-condition of marriage that a girl should be mutilated, a parent who doesn't have his daughters mutilated risks having unmarried daughters to support those daughters for the rest of his life, and also suffer the stigma and persecution that comes with having uncut daughters. Thus the consequences of not having his daughters mutilated only serve to reinforce, in the eyes of the community, the necessity of having one's daughters mutilated. The only way a community can abandon FGM is if the whole community, or a significant part of it, in a coordinated manner, pledges to not mutilate their daughters and also, crucially, pledges to only marry their sons to unmutilated girls. This approach - the Pledge Association method - worked spectacularly well with footbinding in China. However, it has been much less successful with FGM, probably because whilst footbinding was a secular practice, FGM is a religious one.

Islamic Doctrine that creates social conditions favourable to FGM

As might be evident from the previous section, Islam, by allowing and encouraging polygyny, not only reproduces the originating conditions for FGM but also enshrines in law and custom secondary consequences of polygyny, such as bride-price, veiling, gender segregation, arranged marriage, child marriage, and excessive preoccupation with feminine 'purity'. Indeed, Islam could be characterised as: the codification and sacralisation of polygyny, and of the consequences of polygyny.

A society's kinship system shapes the rest of the culture around itself and has far reaching implications - determining laws, beliefs and institutions that, at first sight, can appear unrelated to kinship and reproduction.

Thus, even if Islamic doctrine didn't explicitly mandate/allow FGM, it is possible that FGM would still be associated with Islam, since by sacralising the causes of FGM and also its consequences it erects round the practice an institutional and normative armature that culturally justifies and normalises it.

Monogamous kinship systems approach a state of equilibrium where every man and woman can expect to find a spouse. This state of equilibrium is impossible in a polygynous system. Females become a commodity with both inherent value (their beauty, and their reproductive and home-making capacities) and status value (the more you have the higher your status). This fuels a dynamic where the demand for marriageable females always exceeds the supply, where elite men can never have enough wives and poor men are doomed to systemic bachelorhood.

The 'bride-famine' that develops amongst poor low-status men is alleviated by introducing ever more females to the marriage market: children, cousins, and females captured in raids (either to be taken as wives by the raiders, or sold as sex-slaves to the elite). Where such raids are not an option - celibate young men direct their sexual frustration towards females closer to home: the girls and women of their community. This makes for sexually violent societies. And this ambiance of sexual violence further amplifies the anxieties of families and husbands with regard to the chastity and purity of their females - leading them to sequester and protect their females even more from young men. This is a positive feedback dynamic whose endpoint is the complete absence and invisibility of non-familial females from the lives of the low-status young men, who are doomed to systemic chronic bachelorhood.

The supposed perfection of Islam, makes it hard for Muslims to identify the social causes of the sexual violence endemic to their societies. It is instead attributed to notions that female sexuality is excessive, indiscriminate and dangerous if left unchecked by chastity assurance measures such as FGM. Islam thus creates a concurrence of dysfunctional marital, sexual and kinship practices. It overvalues the chastity and purity of females whilst, at the same time, creating sexually violent societies which put that very chastity and purity at increased risk. The solutions Islam offers to this conundrum exacerbate the problems thus creating a social and normative context in which chastity assurance measures such as FGM, become useful or even necessary.

Sex-slavery

Islam permits sex-slavery, nor limits the number of sex-slaves a man can own.

Gerry Mackie suggests that it is extreme polygyny that gives rise to chastity assurance measures such as FGM. In a closed system (where females are not imported), the extent of polygyny is limited by the number of females in the system and the number of of systemically agamous young men (which, being a cause of crime, conflict and unrest, is a destabilizing force).^[8] Extreme polygyny is therefore only possible if sex-slaves are introduced into the system. We can note that the famously large harems of the Sultans, Shahs and Sheiks scrupulously respected Islamic law (e.g. the Sultan Moulay Ismail Ibn Sharif of Morocco^[11] had four wives and at least 500 'concubines', and Fat′h Ali Shah Qajar, the second Shah of Iran, also had 4 wives, but also a harem of 800-1000 'concubines'). Extreme polygyny without sex-slavery (i.e. females forcibly imported into the system) creates correspondingly extreme bride-famines at the bottom of society, and also deprives the affected men of a means whereby to relieve that famine. This makes for unstable societies - where the interdiction on capturing sex-slaves would not, anyway, be respected.

Furthermore polygyny that is strictly restricted to a maximum of four wives (with no sex-slavery permitted) loses its power as a status symbol and becomes less desirable to elite men, and likewise diminishes the community's hypergynous drive. Thus in the absence of sex-slavery polygyny tends to diminish and die out.

Historians estimate that two thirds of slaves under Islam were girls or women. Whilst local raids on neighbors fuel tribal polygyny, Islamic polygyny drew on sources of slaves from far afield - especially Africa. This involved captured women and children in long treks across the continent, often to Ethiopia or Zanzibar for transportation to Arabia. These treks were risky and took a heavy toll on those in captivity. Virgins (and therefore prepubescent or adolescent girls) were the most valuable slaves. Infibulation (the sealing up of the vagina) developed as a technology to protect the virginity of these girls over these long hazardous treks (four out of five slaves died during the forced march to the slave trading post at Zanzibar. There appears to be a correlation between the historical centres of the Islamic slave trade and the distribution of infibulation today, and the influence of the Islamic slave trade could explain the pervasiveness of FGM in Islamic Africa today.

It should be noted that boys suffered an even worse fate than girls. In a process analogous to infibulation (see description below) captured boys between the age of ten and fifteen were systematically castrated in order to become eunuchs to guard the harems of elite Muslim men. Malek Chebel estimates the death rate had a 10% survival rate,^[12] Charles Gordon (1833 – 1885), governor of Khartoum, estimated the procedure had a 0.5% survival rate. Because of their rarity, eunuchs were worth about twelve times the other slaves because of the death rate from the operation.

Mahr

The payment of bride-price (mahr) by the groom (or his family) to the bride (or her family) is mandatory in Islamic law.

All marriages in polygynous kinship systems involve some kind of bride-price. The scarcity of marriageable women which polygyny causes turns them into a valuable asset, that is cashed in when she is 'sold' in marriage. The scarcer marriageable women are the greater the dowries. This makes marriage unaffordable to low-ranking young men, even if they do manage to find a bride. But if a girl is perceived to be unchaste, or if she’s been a victim of sexual violence, she becomes impure and un-marriageable and loses all her economic value. This leaves her family stuck with a valueless commodity that they must support for the rest of their lives. This creates a further incentive for parents to engage in chastity assurance practices such as FGM.

Child marriage

Islamic law sets no lower age at which a girl can be married off.

Introducing little girls into the marriage market is a response to the the scarcity of women caused by polygyny and child marriage is universal to polygynous societies. Dowry further incentives child-marriage, as it becomes advantageous for parents to ‘sell-off’ their daughters before adolescence, when reputations (and therefore also the girl's economic value) are at greater risk. The bride-price for a child is generally less than for an adolescent or adult woman. This makes children a more affordable to poor and low-status men. Polygyny increases mens' paternity anxieties and doubts, and also creates anxieties connected to the management of multiple wives – therefore submissiveness, obedience, manipulability are valued in a wife - characteristics more pronounced in younger brides. It has been observed that polygamous men select younger girls as wives (even as first wives) than monogamous men.

In monogamous societies, the incest taboo extends not only to daughters but also to women young enough to be a man's daughter. This separation of generations does not naturally occur in polygynous cultures. Polygyny thus sexualises the society's perception of prepubescent girls, making them vulnerable to the sexual violence endemic to polygynous societies. This drives down the age at which chastity assurance practices (including FGM) are felt to be required.

Sexual dysfunction and incest

Long-term prisoners and boys in single-sex boarding schools, when deprived of contact with female coevals, tend to direct their sexuality at the next best things available viz other boys or other prisoners. Under Islamic restrictions boys and girls are deprived of contact with unrelated coevals of the opposite sex. The next best thing available - those whose faces are visible, to whom they can talk, whom they might touch - will be mothers, aunts or sisters - or other boys, babies and children, or even livestock. The evidence for the effects of this on sexual health is anecdotal, but one can hypothesise that rates of incest, bestiality, paedophilia and otherwise deviant sexuality will be higher in polygynous societies, especially where multiple chastity assurance practices are in place, and that paedophilia, incest and bestiality are considered more acceptable than in monogamous cultures, where chastity assurance practices are absent. FGM, infibulation in particular, may serve as much to protect a girl's chastity from the attentions of immediate family members, as from sexual violence of the wider community.

Violence against girls and women

Islamic law permits wife beating.

Social scientists such as Joseph Heinrich, et al. and William H. Tucker have shown that polygynous societies are by their very nature belligerent and sexually violent. These societies develop chastity assurance measures to protect girls and women from this sexual violence.

The bride-famine created by polygyny dooms a sizeable proportion of young men to systemic bachelorhood. The resulting sexual frustrations can be relieved by them capturing females from neighbouring tribes and countries. However, a more available and less dangerous option is to engage in sexual violence towards girls and women of their own community.

Polygyny by increasing the society's anxieties around the 'purity', chastity and reputations of girls and women, gives rise to 'honour culture' – whereby excessive measures and excessive punishments are used to control girls and women, and to stop the family's honour being sullied by any (actual or percieved) unchastity of female members. This honour, once lost, can only be restored by severe and violent punishment and revenge, including murder of the female family member and/or the male that compromised her honour.

Polygynyous societies (including Islamic ones) are pervaded by a generalised violence that normalise practices such as FGM: sexual violence, male circumcision, the licitness of wife-beating, public executions and amputations, the glorification of violence in the Qur'an and the Sunnah, the requirement of Jihad, and animal cruelty, including halal slaughter and the mass public slaughter of animals during Eid, – all act to desensitize the culture to the violent nature of practices such as FGM.

The polygynous family

Polygynous households tend to be characterised by:

• competition and rivalry among co-wives
• increased spousal age gaps
• decreased genetic inter-relatedness within the household
• reduced confidence as to the husband's paternity of the children (which increases his sexual jealousy and anxiety)
• more step-parents.

All these factors correlate with increased neglect of, and violence towards, children, either from the father or from step-mothers. Data from 22 sub-Saharan African countries finding that children of (rich) polygynous families were 24.4% more likely to die compared with children of (poor) monogamous families. Fathers have less involvement with their many wives, and even less involvement with their even more numerous children (Osama bin laden’s father had 54 children by 22 wives and is reputed to have not known many of his children's names). Islam encourages parents, relatives and teachers to treat and discipline children in ways that are considered unnecessarily harsh in the non-Muslim world.

All this and the physical violence and wife-beating that is common in polygynous/Islamic families normalises the cruelty of FGM.

The functions of FGM

- break down personality

- instill fear and submission*

- frigidity and trauma

- chastiry assurance

FGM as Un-Islamic

As the above quote (dating Mar 27, 2017) confirms, the idea that FGM might be un-Islamic appears to be quite recent. In recent decades there has been a flurry of fatwas concerning FGM in response to a world-wide increasing sensitivity to the rights of women and children, and a growing international awareness of the practice of FGM. The earliest fatwa clearly critical of FGM appears to be one from 1984^[13]

An Ngram for the terms ‘fgm’, ‘female genital mutilation’ and ‘female circumcision’ shows a sharp and steady rise in the more condemnatory terms (‘mutilation’ and 'FGM' rather than ‘circumcision’) in English-language literature starting around 1989. This coincides with the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, which first identified female genital mutilation as a harmful traditional practice, and mandated that governments abolish it as one of several 'traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children'.^[14] Soon afterwards reports and condemnations were issued by organisations such as the World Health Organisation (1995),^[15] the Council of Europe (1995), and UNICEF & UNFPA (1997).^[16] Parts of the Islamic world, especially those parts which don't practice FGM, for the first time in Islamic history, began to endeveour to de-link FGM from Islam.

In recent decades many agencies and charities have engaged themselves in the fight against FGM^[17]. These agencies (and other individuals working to combat FGM) face a particular challenge: when interacting with populations who practice FGM, telling the truth is guaranteed to make matters worse. For example how should a worker for an anti-FGM charity, who is giving a lecture to a roomful of Somali mothers in the hope of persuading them to abandon the practice, respond the the question 'is FGM Islamic?'

If the charity worker tells those mothers about the FGM hadith, and about how FGM is part of the fitrah (which Qur'an 30:30 exhorts Muslims to adhere to - see FGM in the Qur'an), and how the Shafi'i (the school of fiqh which Somalia follows) scholars are unanimous in making FGM mandatory - those mothers will leave the lecture more likely to have their daughters mutilated, rather than less likely, as intended. This dilemma faces not just on-the-ground charity workers, but the whole hierarchy of institutions devoted to combating FGM, and a variety of strategies have emerged to resolve the dilemma. Most involve some form of obfuscation or diversion which gives the impression of showing FGM to be un-Islamic whilst, on closer examination, doing no such thing.

The 'FGM as un-Islamic' narrative is also reinforced by the fact that it is a minority of Muslims that practice FGM. Muslims who don't practice FGM have become more aware of FGM over the past decades, and generally share the objections of non-Muslims towards the practice. And, in addition, are troubled by its association with Islam.Immigration to the West has tended to come from these non-practicing schools and traditions - from the Maghreb, Pakistan and Turkey, where the presiding school of fiqh is Hanafi - the school of fiqh under which there is the least incidence of FGM. These immigrant populations have effectively imported the 'FGM is un-Islamic' narrative to the West.

The following section addresses some of the principal arguments used to support the 'FGM is Un-Islamic' position.

Arguments de-linking FGM from Islam

FGM is not required by Islam

Probably the most cited instance of this argument is a fatwa issued by Dr Ahmed Talib, the former Dean of the Faculty of Sharia at Al-Azhar University, the most prestigious university for Sunni Islamic learning.

In this fatwa Dr Talib so emphatically condemns FGM that the implication of his final phrase could pass unnoticed. If one assumes Dr Talib to have weighed his words and meant what his words mean, then FGM’s legitimacy stops short of ‘obligatory’. 'Not an obligation' includes everything from 'forbidden' to 'highly recommended', and the fact something is 'not obligatory’ in no way implies that it is forbidden or even undesirable. Examples of acts that are 'not obligatory' include owning a dog, giving to charity, child sexual abuse and murder. For Dr Talib to conclude that ‘FGM is not obligatory under Islam’ suggests that he was unable to state that ‘FGM is forbidden under Islam’. And 'not obligatory', 'allowed' or 'tolerated' are no more acceptable legal or ethical positions for a practice such as FGM than they would be for murder, child sexual abuse or rape.

It should also be noted that the Shafi'i school of Islam and some Hanbali scholars have ruled FGM obligatory.

There is no FGM in the Qur'an

It is correct that there is no mention of FGM in the Qur'an. But according to traditional interpretive methodology Qur'an 30:30, by requiring one to 'adhere to the fitrah', indirectly, but ineluctably, advocates FGM (see FGM in the Qur'an). There is likewise no mention of male circumcision in the Qur'an.

Indeed, most of what constitutes Islam is found not in the Qur'an but in the Sunnah (the hadith and sirat). The Qur'an has 91 verses commanding to follow Muhammad's example to the last detail. However the Qur'an contains virtually none of Muhammad's life. Muslims can only know about Muhammad's life by turning to the hadith and sirat. Most of the practical details of how what it means to be a Muslim come from the Sunnah. None of the Five Pillars of Islam are explained in the Qur'an, which, for example, tells Muslims to pray, but not how to pray.

FGM existed before Islam

This argument assumes that if a practice existed before Islam then it can not be Islamic.

The archaeological and historical record prove that FGM did indeed exist before Islam (see FGM before Islam). However, if this meant that FGM was disqualified from being Islamic - then monotheism, ideas of heaven and hell, male circumcision, pilgrimage to Mecca, praying, the veneration of the Kaaba, abstention from pork, giving to charity, interdictions on lying and murder, and much more would also be un-Islamic - previous religions and societies having held these beliefs and engaged in these practices. Indeed, if Islam were only that which was unique to Islam, almost nothing that has been considered Islamic over the last 1400 would remain.

Mohammed took a pre-Islamic localized tradition and integrated it into the religion he was inventing. He thus sacralised FGM, guaranteeing that it would flourish wherever, and for as long as, Islam existed. But in addition, he sacralised the causes of FGM - polygyny and many of its consequences (sex-slavery, child marriage, bride-price, sexual violence - see The Sociology of FGM) thus 'locking-in' the practice into a legal, normative and institutional structure. Practices such as FGM tend to die out on exposure to non-tribal, monogamous cultural influences - footbinding, sati, slavery, child marriage and non-Islamic FGM have all been eliminated or curtailed where the West has had influence. Islam, because it is diametrically opposed to such influences and values has perpetuated the conditions where FGM can continue to flourish.

FGM is an African practice

It is true that FGM existed in parts of Africa before the invention of Islam – notably Egypt and the West coast of the Red Sea (see FGM before Islam: non-Islamic Sources). But the hadith report that FGM was also practiced in Arabia before the invention of Islam, not least by Mohammed's tribe, the Banu Quraysh. It should also be noted that:

1. most of Africa does not practice FGM,
2. about 40% of FGM happens outside of Africa, in South Asia in particular.^[2]
3. It appears to have been the Islam's plundering of Africa for sex slaves that spread FGM to its current extent (which closely coincides with that of Islam).

It is also well documented that FGM was brought to Indonesia by Muslim traders and conquerors in the 13^th Century. Indonesia is of the Shaafi school (the madhab that makes FGM obligatory) and has +90% rates of FGM amongst its Muslims. This suggests that FGM is not so much an African practice as an Islamic one.

Christians practice FGM too

This argument assumes that if Christians engage in a practice then it can not be Islamic.

If this were true, then what is 'Islamic' is influenced by what Christians do (or don't do) - something that Muslims would undoubtedly reject.

On the map showing the prevalence of Female Genital Cutting, many Western Christian countries are assigned the rubric 'rare or limited to particular ethnic minority enclaves'. This does not indicate that Christians in those countries engage in FGM, but rather reflects the presence of FGM-practicing immigrants, who are almost entirely Muslim.

However, about 20% of global FGM is attributable to non-Muslims, and are for the most part Christians.^[2] But these Christians nearly all live as isolated and persecuted minorities within a dominant Islamic FGM-practicing culture. FGM is an islamic purity practice, and within FGM-practicing societies girls who are not cut are considered impure. Any contact or proximity with them, or sharing of objects will be considered as contaminating. Individuals, families and communities that do not follow the dominant culture's purity observances are perceived as gravely threatening the spiritual and religious lives of that community since, for example, a Muslim's prayers will be rendered invalid if he is inadvertently contaminated, and will continue to be invalid until he correctly purifies himself.

This means that in such Islamic communities, non-Muslims who do not follow the communities purity observances are shunned, stigmatised, discriminated against and persecuted. An example of this recently occurred in Pakistan when a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, drank from a Muslim's cup - and brought upon herself, her family and her community much violence, hatred and persecution.^[18]

Hence, non-Muslims come under great pressure to adopt the dominant Islamic purity practices in order to minimise persecution. The Copts are Christian and make up 10 to 15% of the population of Egypt. Copts practice FGM at about a 74% (compared to 92% Muslims). Copts acknowledge that they practice FGM in order to minimise persecution. It is Christian minorities such as the Copts who appear to be the most ready to abandon FGM when it becomes safe for them to do so.^[19]

There are however three countries where FGM appears to be practiced by Christian majorities – Ethiopia, Eritrea and Liberia. The FGM in Liberia is practiced as part of the initiation into secret women's societies. FGM in Ethiopia and Eritrea is due to a combination of historical factors: much of their history the surrounding Islamic states for centuries kept them isolated from mainstream Christianity, and they were the hubs of the Islamic slave trade, where slave girls captured in West Africa were infibulated to guarantee their virginity and thus raise their price, in preparation for the slave markets of the Islamic Middle East. This Islamic practice was adopted by the locals, and has persisted.

The following graphs (adapted from graphs found at https://www.28toomany.org/research-resources/) combine rates of decline of FGM practice in a variety of African countries with (in green and mauve) the proportion of the population that is Muslim. Note that the lower the proportion of the nation that is Muslim, the steeper rate of decline of FGM-practice.

• rates of decline of FGM in African countries with (in green and red) the proportion of the population that is Muslim
• Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

  Somaliland

• Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

  Sudan

• Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

  Senegal

• Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

  Djibouti

• Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

  Guinea

• Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

  Eritrea

• Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

  Tanzania

• Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

  Ethiopia

• Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

  Benin

• Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

  Liberia

Not all Muslims practice FGM

This argument assumes that only those practices which all Muslims engage in can be Islamic.

This is, in turn, is based on the assumption that a religion is defined only by that which it makes universally obligatory. But religions are also defined by - and responsible for - what they recommend, encourage, allow, discourage and forbid. For example, the Eucharist (Holy Communion) is undoubtedly Christian. But it is recommended, not obligatory, and not all Christians take the Eucharist. And polygyny is unquestionably Islamic, but not every Muslim has several wives.

Not all Islamic practices are obligatory: polygyny and child marriage are not obligatory, and whilst a Muslim must complete 5 prayers a day, there are optional (nawafil) prayers which confer additional rewards. Fasting outside of the month of Ramadhan, or giving sadaqah (voluntary charity) are also optional. The Shafi'i school makes FGM obligatory, the Maliki school recommends it, and the Hanafi school allows it. The schools' different levels of obligation are reflected in the incidence of FGM. And where it is merely 'allowed' or 'tolerated' are we surprised that parents abstain from an act that goes against parents deepest instincts?

The variations in the stances of the schools of fiqh to a large extent account for why not all Muslims practice FGM. There is also the encroachment of Christian and Western values, improving levels of education and progress in women's rights. However, the most condemnatory stance Islamic scholars can take on FGM is that it can't be forbidden, that it is 'allowed'.

But FGM is not an ethically neutral act, such as the Eucharist - swallowing a wafer - or Baptism - sprinkling water on a baby's head. FGM is an act of mutilation and torture carried out on a child. 'Allowing' is no more the appropriate base-line for such an act than it would be for child sexual abuse, rape or murder. A legal system does not need to make child sexual abuse compulsory for it to be defined as being favourable to child sexual abuse - it is sufficient that it allows child sexual abuse to earn itself that label.

Thus the fact that not all Muslims practice FGM is a consequence of some schools allowing FGM, others recommending it, and others mandating it. That some communities, where they have the freedom to choose, have historically chosen not to engage in FGM does not alter the fact that Islam's basic position of allowing FGM, makes FGM Islamic.

The FGM Hadith are weak

This argument is often mobilised to discredit inconvenient hadith.

Four of the seven 'FGM hadith', report Muhammad favouring FGM.

Two of these ('The fitrah is five things' and 'When the circumcised parts touch') are included in both sahih Bukhari and sahih Muslim. Both hadith compilations are considered wholly authoritative. Moreover these two hadith are also some of the best-supported hadith in these compilations. 'When the circumcised parts touch' is a 'tacit approval' in that it reports Muhammad referring in passing to FGM without him expressing disapproval of it - this is understood to count as his approval.

The two other hadith that report Muhammad's attitude towards FGM ('A preservation of honour for women' and 'Do not cut severely') are not generally considered as sahih, but hasan (good) or daif (weak).

Al-Bukhari also compiled the two adab ('Someone to Amuse Them' and 'Go and Circumcise Them and Purify Them') which touch on FGM. Al-Bukhari's evaluation of the hadiths within al-Adab al-Mufrad was not as rigorous as for his best-known collection - Sahih Bukhari. However, scholars have ruled most of the hadith in the collection as being sahih or hasan.

A seventh hadith ('One who circumcises other ladies') is also compiled by Bukhari and is thus sahih. It is not of interest doctrinally, but contains useful historical, sociological and linguistic information (see 'FGM before Islam: Islamic sources').

So some of the FGM hadith are arguably weak. But weak hadiths do not cancel or weaken more reliable ones, and several sahih hadith favour FGM.

Furthermore, whilst doctrine cannot be generated from a weak hadith alone, they can be used if:

1. the hadith not be very weak;
2. the hadith be within the scope of an authentic legal principle that is applied and accepted in either the Qur’an or Sunnah;
3. its weakness, not authenticity, be realized when applying it.^[20]

For example the information that Muhammad considered a form of FGM excessively sever can be taken from 'Do not cut severely', even assuming it a daif hadith, since it is not in contradiction with the stronger FGM hadith and does not contradict the Qur'an.

The hadith - whether daif, hasan, or sahih - all provide evidence that some form of FGM was practiced by Muhammad's followers. All of Islam treats the Quran and the Sunnah as the prime sources of doctrine. However, where an issue is not resolved by these secondary heuristics (daleel) are used for elucidating doctrine - and these heuristics are worked through in a hierarchical manner until the issue is resolved.

The Hanbali, Shafi'i and Maliki schools of Sunni Islam have as their principle daleels the consideration what the companions of Muhammad did or thought (Ijma, Ijtihad and Amal). The Hanafi school prioritises analogical deduction (Qiyas). Thus the deeds and words of the Muhammad's companions are second only to the Quran and Sunnah in determining what is Islamic or not - and are especially important where scholars find that the Qur'an and Hadith don't resolve an issue. The exception is the Hanafi school, which ascribes a lesser importance to the deeds and words of the Sahabah - which may explain why the Hanafi madhab rules FGM as merely 'optional' and why Hanafi Muslims generally don't practice FGM.^{[21] [22]}

The Qur'an forbids mutilation

This argument engages in the fallacy of Petitio Principi, or 'Begging the Question' (assuming in the premise of an argument that which one wishes to prove in the conclusion).

Islam forbids all mutilations to the human body – except those that it permits. Male circumcision, for example, is a mutilation that Islamic law permits, and therefore it is not forbidden. Likewise the amputation of hand and feet. Beheading, stoning, and crucifixion - which all involve mutilation prior to the victim's death - are all also permitted in Islamic law.

There is no record of Muhammad having his wives or daughters circumcised

There is also no record of Muhammad undergoing circumcision himself, or having his sons circumcised. There is no record of Mohammed having practiced many things which are justified or required by Islamic law: for example there is no record of Muhammad limiting himself to just four wives.

Indeed, it is unlikely that Muhammad would have needed to command or require the circumcision of his wives, since females in Mohammed’s circle would have been circumcised in childhood. In the hadith narrated by Umm ‘Alqama the persons being cut are clearly children and the function of Islamic FGM (see The Sociology of FGM) requires that it be prepubescents who are submitted to FGM, not adolescents or adults.

FGM in Islamic cultures is matriarchal custom, a taboo and secretive affair, usually arranged by female relatives. The hadith 'do not cut severely' and 'One who circumcises other ladies' depict women performing the mutilation, not men. Male family members are excluded and may not even realise that their community engages in the practice. ^[23] For example, it is possible for an educated young man from Oman (which is reported to have a 95.5% FGM-rate. ^[24]) to be not only unaware that FGM exists in his country, but also to be unaware that his own mother and sisters have undergone the procedure.

Muhammad wanted to forbid FGM but couldn't

The full argument is that Muhammad wanted to forbid FGM could not because he felt that the society wherein he lived was not ready to immediately do this, so in the Qur'an and by his Sunnah he prepared the ground for eventual abolition of the practice. The same argument is often made with respect to Islamic slavery.

What evidence is there that Muhammad wished FGM to be abolished?

The hadith that scholars are so ready to dismiss as daif (weak) when used as evidence that Muhammad approved of FGM, is sometimes mobilised, and treated as if it were sahih when used as evidence that he wanted to moderate the practice....

Other than this there is no evidence - instead he affirmed the practices that cause FGM: polygyny, sex-slavery - and also affirmed sister-practices (practices that emerge from the same causes, that create a normative, legal and isntitutional sturcutre that supports, justifies and normalises FGM) - child marriage, bride-price...

Muhammad was not shy of forbidding things which would have been dear to the people he ruled over - pigs and pork products, alcohol, gambling, music and singing - things that, when indulged in with moderation, give harmless pleasure.

One of the major ‘selling points’ of Mohammed’s new religion was that it overturned and rejected the established practices of pre-Islamic Arabian polytheism. Mohammed suddenly imposed on his followers such new practices as male circumcision, abstention from alcohol, pork, games, gambling, music, singing and art, ritual ablutions, praying 5 times a day… and these new rules were followed. It seems unlikely that refraining from FGM - a practice that goes against the deepest instincts of any parent - would be ‘one reform too many’ for his followers.

One can speculate how things would be different if, in the Qur'an, he had forbidden FGM with the same force he did alcohol, and not approved of it in his words and deeds in the Hadith. Would Islamic history and the Islamic world today would so rife with FGM?

Mohammed has served to fix slavery and FGM, rather than reduce it. We can see that slavery and fGM are still rife in the islamic world whereas FGM and slavery are disappearing from the non-Islamic world?.

Likewise, if Muhammad had personally abstained from slavery, instead of being an enthusiastic and relentless capturer, trader and enjoyer of slaves - this argument might be more coherent.

the Qur'an's and hadith's approval of FGM and slavery have been a major factor in the justification of perpetuation of the practice. One can speculate whether FGM would still be endemic to the Islamic world if the Qur'an contained a single verse explicitly forbidding it, or if there were not FGM in the hadith.

Mohammed successfully demanded that his followers abstain from pleasurable and/or beneficial things such as eating pork, drinking alcohol, interest in debt, the public display of women’s faces, instrumental music, and art that depicts the human form, the easy mixing and socialisation of men and women – how much more willingly would his followers have abandoned a practice that is harmful, and that must be distressing for loving parents to perform and witness?

See Also

• Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars:Female Genital Mutilation
• Female Genital Mutilation in Islamic Law

References