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=Female Genital Mutilation in Islam=
circumcision
[[File:712px-fgc types-ii.svg .jpg|thumb|274x274px|Female Genital Mutilation]]
'''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.<ref>UNICEF [https://www.unicef.org/media/files/FGMC_2016_brochure_final_UNICEF_SPREAD.pdf Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: a Global Concern (2016)]</ref> Assuming a world population of 7.9 billion, this means that about one in twenty girls or women world-wide have undergone FGM.   
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_circumcision#cite_ref-41
 
About 80% of this FGM is attributable to Muslims.<ref name=":2">[http://archive.today/2021.04.09-040325/https://fgmtruth.wordpress.com/what-percentage-of-global-fgm-are-moslems-responsible-for/ What Percentage of Global FGM is done by Moslems ?]</ref> And assuming a world population of Muslims of 1.7 billion, this means that at least one in five (20%) Muslim women is mutilated.   
 
FGM is found only in or adjacent to Islamic groups<ref name=":0" />. The 20% of FGM attributable to non-Muslims occurs in communities living in FGM-practicing Islamic societies (e.g. the Egyptian Copts<ref>[http://archive.today/2021.04.09-040655/https://copticliterature.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/prevalence-of-and-support-for-female-genital-mutilation-within-the-copts-of-egypt-unicef-report-2013/ Prevalence of and Support for Female Genital Mutilation within the Copts of Egypt: Unicef Report (2013)]</ref>), or to non-Islamic societies that have been hubs of the Islamic slave trade (e.g. Ethiopia and Eritrea<ref>[https://data.unicef.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/A-Profile-of-FGM-in-Ethiopia_2020.pdf A Profile of Female Genital Mutilation in Ethiopia]</ref>). About one in eighty (1.28%) non-Muslim women are genitally mutilated world-wide.    [[File:Fgmmuslimmap.jpg|alt=World maps comparing distributions of FGM and of Muslims|thumb|World maps comparing distributions of FGM and of Muslims|left|350x350px]]FGM predates Islam. The [[Banu Qurayza|Banu Quraysh]], Muhammad's native tribe, appear to have engaged in the practice (see [[User:Flynnjed/Sandbox#FGM before Islam|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 [[User:Flynnjed/Sandbox#FGM%20in%20the%20Hadith|FGM in the Hadith]]) 
 
The Qur'an contains no explicit mention of FGM. However, Qur'an 30:30, by exhorting Muslims to ''<nowiki/>'adhere to the fitrah''' indirectly, but ineluctably exhorts Muslims to engage in FGM. (see [[User:Flynnjed/Sandbox#FGM in the Qur.27an|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 [[User:Flynnjed/Sandbox#FGM%20in%20Islamic%20law|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.<ref name=":12">p54 [https://books.google.fr/books?id=qof6J4n1860C&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=Sheikh+Abu-Sabib+1984&source=bl&ots=-apLOOha6B&sig=dpINFFLI-N9KO8_FmEET-MDFKbI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiXh5Gi5OfcAhVOyoUKHeSgDWUQ6AEwC3oECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Sheikh%20Abu-Sabib%201984&f=false "Sexual Mutilations: A Human Tragedy" By International Symposium On Sexual Mutiliations 1996]</ref> (see [[User:Flynnjed/Sandbox#Modern%20Fatwas|Modern Fatwas]] and [[User:Flynnjed/Sandbox#FGM%20as%20Un-Islamic|FGM as Un-Islamic]]) 
 
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 [[User:Flynnjed/Sandbox2#FGM before Islam|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 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 [[User:Flynnjed/Sandbox2#The origins of FGM|the origins of FGM]] will consider what these 'problems' are, and why they arise in some societies. The next section ([[User:Flynnjed/Sandbox2#Islamic Doctrine that creates social conditions favourable to FGM|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 final section ([[User:Flynnjed/Sandbox#FGM and the Uses of Trauma|FGM and the Uses of Trauma]]) considers how the social purposes of FGM is realised through the experience of the individual child undergoing FGM.
 
==FGM in the Qur'an and Hadith==
There is no explicit reference to Female Genital Mutilation in the Qur'an. However, the {{Quran|30|30}} requires Muslims to ''<nowiki/>'adhere to the fitrah'<nowiki/>''.{{Quote|{{Quran|30|30}}|So direct your face toward the religion, inclining to truth. '''[Adhere to] the fitrah''' (فطرة or فطرت) of Allah upon which He has created (فطر) [all] people. No change should there be in the creation of Allah . That is the correct religion, but most of the people do not know.}}'''''The word ''<nowiki/>'fitrah''' appears only this once in the Qur'an, and is left undefined and unexplained. To know what 'fitrah means, traditional scholars turned to hadith which make use of the word. Note that this hadith uses the Arabic word ''khitan'' (ختان) for 'circumcision'.{{Quote|{{Bukhari|7|72|777}}; See also {{Muslim|2|495}}|Abu Hurayrah said: I heard the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) say: “The fitrah is five things – or '''five things are part of the fitrah – circumcision''' [اخْتُتِنَّ - khitan], shaving the pubes, trimming the moustache, cutting the nails and plucking the armpit hairs.”}}Two other hadith use the word ''khitan'' in contexts where the procedure is unquestionably being performed on females (and only on females).  {{Quote|1={{Abu Dawud|41|5251}}|2=Narrated Umm Atiyyah al-Ansariyyah: A woman used to perform '''circumcision''' [الْخِتَانُ - khitan] in Medina. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said to her: "Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband".}}{{Quote|1=[http://archive.today/2016.08.04-024338/http://sunnah.com/urn/2212030 Al-Adab Al-Mufrad 53:1247]|2=“Umm ‘Alqama related that when the daughters of ‘A’isha’s brother were '''circumcised''' [اخْتُتِنَّ - khitan], ‘A’isha was asked, “Shall we call someone to amuse them?” “Yes,” she replied. ‘Adi was sent for and he came to them. ‘A’isha passed by the room and saw him singing and shaking his head in rapture – and he had a large head of hair. ‘Uff!’ she exclaimed, ‘A shaytan! Get him out! Get him out!'””}}Three hadith use the word 'khitan to refer to ''both'' FGM and Male Circumcision.{{Quote|1={{Bukhari|7|72|777}}; See also {{Muslim|2|495}}|2=Abu Hurayrah said: I heard the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) say: “The fitrah is five things – or five things are part of the fitrah – '''circumcision''' [الْخِتَانُ - khitan], shaving the pubes, trimming the moustache, cutting the nails and plucking the armpit hairs.”}}{{Quote|1={{Bukhari|7|72|777}}; See also {{Muslim|2|495}}|2=Abu Hurayrah said: I heard the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) say: “The fitrah is five things – or five things are part of the fitrah – '''circumcision''' [الْخِتَانُ - khitan], shaving the pubes, trimming the moustache, cutting the nails and plucking the armpit hairs.”}}{{Quote|1={{Muslim|3|684}}; see also {{Bukhari|1|5|289}}|2=Abu Musa reported: There cropped up a difference of opinion between a group of Muhajirs (Emigrants and a group of Ansar (Helpers) (and the point of dispute was) that the Ansar said: The bath (because of sexual intercourse) becomes obligatory only-when the semen spurts out or ejaculates. But the Muhajirs said: When a man has sexual intercourse (with the woman), a bath becomes obligatory (no matter whether or not there is seminal emission or ejaculation). Abu Musa said: Well, I satisfy you on this (issue). He (Abu Musa, the narrator) said: I got up (and went) to 'A'isha and sought her permission and it was granted, and I said to her: 0 Mother, or Mother of the Faithful, I want to ask you about a matter on which I feel shy. She said: Don't feel shy of asking me about a thing which you can ask your mother, who gave you birth, for I am too your mother. Upon this I said: What makes a bath obligatory for a person? She replied: You have come across one well informed! The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: When anyone sits amidst four parts (of the woman) and the '''circumcised''' [الْخِتَانُ - khitan]
parts touch each other a bath becomes obligatory.}}Thus, the word '<nowiki/>''khitan'<nowiki/>'' appears to refer to both or either FGM and Male Circumcision. According to traditional interpretive methodology, {{Quran|30|30}} by requiring Muslims to ''<nowiki/>'adhere to the fitrah'<nowiki/>'' advocates FGM.
 
A sixth Hadith reports Uthman, one of Muhammad's closest companions, having newly converted women under go FGM as part of their initiation into Islam. The word he uses is not الْخِتَانُ (khitan), but فَاخْفِضُو (khaffad), which translates as 'reduce them' or 'trim them'.
 
The remaining hadith includes an exchange of insults between Meccan warriors and Muhammad's companions prior to the [[Battle of Uhud|battle of Uhud]]. It has little import doctrinally, but is of linguistic, historical and sociological interest because it appears to indicate that Muhammad's native tribe, the Banu Qaraysh, traditionally practiced FGM.{{Quote|1={{Bukhari|5|59|399}}|2=“[…] I went out with the people for the battle. When the army aligned for the fight, Siba’ came out and said, ‘Is there any (Muslim) to accept my challenge to a duel?’ Hamza bin `Abdul Muttalib came out and said, ‘O Siba’. O Ibn Um Anmar, '''the one who circumcises''' [أَنْمَارٍ مُقَطِّعَةِ الْبُظُورِ - muqaṭwiʿaẗi al-ْbuẓūri] other ladies! Do you challenge Allah and His Apostle?’ […]”}}
==FGM in Islamic Law==
{{Main}}
[[File:Madhhabplusfgm.jpeg|thumb|Maps showing distribution of madhabs and prevalence of FGM]]
Only one school of Islam - the Shafi'i - makes FGM universally obligatory. The other schools of Islam recommend it with differing levels of obligation. No school of Islam forbids FGM since nothing that Muhammad allowed can be prohibited.
 
===Sunni Islam===
 
*The Maliki school recommends FGM, but does not decree it as obligatory.
*The Hanafi school decrees FGM to be optional. The Hanafi is the school of fiqh which least favours FGM and Hanafi communities generally don't practice FGM.
*The Shafi'i school decree FGM to be obligatory. Shafi'i countries genearlly have +90% FGM-rates. Infibulation, the most severe form of FGM practiced under Islam, is almost entirely attributable to followers of the Shafi'i school.
*The Hanbali school has have two opinions concerning FGM: some scholars decree it obligatory, other as 'honourable' and therefore recommended.
 
===Shia Islam===
The attitudes of Shia Islam towards FGM are as not clear-cut as with the schools of Sunni Islam. The Jafari school appears to recommend FGM, while the Ismaili school (notably the Dawoodhi Bohras) treat it as obligatory.
 
===Modern Fatwas===
For a compilation of about 40 fatwas concerning FGM issued since 1939 see [[Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars:Female Genital Mutilation#Modern Fatwas]]
 
==The History of FGM==
===FGM before Islam===
====Islamic sources====
The hadith [[#other ladies|'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.{{Quote|{{Bukhari|5|59|399}}|“[…] I went out with the people for the battle. When the army aligned for the fight, Siba’ came out and said, ‘Is there any (Muslim) to accept my challenge to a duel?’ Hamza bin `Abdul Muttalib came out and said, ‘O Siba’. O Ibn Um Anmar, '''the one who circumcises other ladies!''' Do you challenge Allah and His Apostle?’ […]”}}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.
{{Quote|[http://archive.today/2021.04.09-071736/https://www.scribd.com/document/317447900/Female-Genital-Mutilation-Cutting Salima Ikram, professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo, told to Discovery News.]|“This was not common practice in ancient Egypt. There is no physical evidence in mummies, neither there is anything in the art or literature. It probably originated in sub-saharan Africa, and was adopted here later on,”}}
[[File:Glyph1.jpg|thumb|spell or prayer found on an Egyptian coffin dating from sometime between 1991–1786 BC ]]
'''A spell or prayer''' found on an Egyptian coffin dating from sometime between 1991–1786 BC appears to refer to an uncircumcised girl.
{{Quote|[http://archive.today/2021.04.09-072542/https://www.jstor.org/stable/3080631?seq&#61;1 Mary Knight - 'Curing Cut or Ritual Mutilation?: Some remarks on the Practice of Female and Male Circumcision in Graeco-Roman Egypt' (2001)]|“But if a man wants to know how to live, he should recite it [a magical spell] every day, after his flesh has been rubbed with the b3d [unknown substance] of an uncircumcised girl [‘m’t] and the flakes of skin of an uncircumcised bald man.”}}
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.
{{Quote|1=[http://archive.today/2021.04.09-072542/https://www.jstor.org/stable/3080631?seq=1 Mary Knight - 'Curing Cut or Ritual Mutilation?: Some remarks on the Practice of Female and Male Circumcision in Graeco-Roman Egypt' (2001)]|2='The Lydians arrived at such a state of delicacy that they were even the first to “castrate” their women … Thus Xanthos says in his second book on the Lydians that Adramytes, the king of the Lydians, castrating the women, used them instead of male eunuchs…. In the second book, he reports that Gyges, the king of the Lydians, was the first who “castrated” women, so that he might use them while they would remain forever youthful.'}}
'''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'.'' <ref>[https://www.amazon.com/Agatharchides-Cnidus-Erythraean-Hakluyt-Society/dp/090418028X 'Agatharchides of Cnidus: On the Erythraean Sea' by Stanley M. Burstein]</ref>
 
'''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.
{{Quote|'Greek Papyri in the British Museum.' Kenyon, F. G. (1893)|'Sometime after this, Nephoris [Tathemis’s mother] defrauded me, being anxious that it was time for Tathemis to be circumcised, as is the custom among the Egyptians. She asked that I give her 1,300 drachmae … to clothe her … and to provide her with a marriage dowry … if she didn’t do each of these or if she did not circumcise Tathemis in the month of Mecheir, year 18 [163 BCE], she would repay me 2,400 drachmae on the spot.'}}
'''Strabo (64 or 63 BC – c. AD 24)''', a Turkish-born Greek geographer, observed the practice whilst travelling up the Nile.
{{Quote|'Geographica' - Strabo|‘This is one of the procedures most enthusiastically performed by [the Egyptians]: to raise every child that is born and to circumcise the males and cut the females… as is also the custom among the Jews, who are also Egyptians in origin. And then to the Harbour of Antiphilus [Naucratis in Egypt], and, above this, to the Creophagi [meat-eaters], of whom the males have their penises circumcised and the women and cut in the Jewish fashion'}}
Another passage from Strabo suggests that Jews practiced FGM some time after Moses’ death.
{{Quote|'Geographica' - Strabo|'Superstitious men were appointed to the priesthood, and then tyrannical people; and from superstition arose abstinence from flesh, from which it is their custom to abstain even today, and circumcisions and excisions of females'}}
'''The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria''' (c. 20 BC – 50 AD) reports in his ''‘Questions on Genesis’''<ref>[http://archive.today/2021.04.09-073825/https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674994188 Questions on Genesis - Philo]</ref>:
{{Quote||‘Why orders he the males only to be circumcised? (Genesis 17:11). For in the first place, Egyptians, in accordance with the national customs of the country, in the fourteenth year of their age, when the male begins to have the power of propagating his species, and when the female arrives at the age of puberty, circumcise both bride and bridegroom. But the divine legislator appoints circumcision to take place in the case of the male alone for many reasons: the first of which is, that the male creature feels venereal pleasures and desires matrimonial connexions more than the female, on which account the female is properly omitted here, while he checks the superfluous impetuosity of the male by the sign of circumcision.’}}
'''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’'':{{Quote||‘Between these [labia majora], a small bit of flesh, the clitoris, grows out at the split. When [the clitoris] protrudes to a great extent in their young women, Egyptians consider it appropriate to cut it out’}}
'''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:
{{Quote|Projected Cultural Histories of the Cutting of Female Genitalia: A Poor Reflection as in a Mirror Sara Johnsdotter,
Malmö University|'On the excessively large clitoris, which the Greeks call the “masculinized” [reading “yos” as a Latinized Yril/Ya;, the god of fertilizing moisture] nymphe [clitoris]. The presenting feature […] of the deformity is a large masculinized clitoris. Indeed, some assert that its flesh becomes erect just as in men and as if in search of frequent sexual intercourse. You will remedy it in the following way: With the woman in a supine position, spreading the closed legs, it is necessary to hold [the clitoris] with a forceps turned to the outside so that the excess can be seen, and to cut off the tip with a scalpel, and finally, with appropriate diligence, to care for the resulting wound.'}}'''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:
{{Quote||'A dreadful size attends to certain clitorides and it upsets the women with the ugliness of the parts, and, as many relate, when it is affected by immoderate tumescence, these women acquire an appetite like men, and when [the clitoris] is so driven, they come into venery. The woman is placed in a supine position with her thighs slightly together so they do not have recourse to too much of the space of the female cavity. Then the superfluous amount should be held with a forceps and an appropriate amount cut off with the scalpel. For if it is stretched out to its greatest length, [?] may follow, and it may cause hurt to the patient with a very large discharge from the cutting off. But after surgery, a remedy that keeps [the wound] under control and [?] should be applied.'}}
'''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:
{{Quote|Aëtius Amidenus 'Tetrabibilion 16'|‘The so-called nymphe [clitoris] is a sort of muscular or skinlike structure that lies above the juncture of the labia minora; below it the urinary outlet is positioned. [This structure] grows in size and is increased to excess in certain women, becoming a deformity and a source of shame. Furthermore, its continual rubbing against the clothes irritates it, and that stimulates the appetite for sexual intercourse.
 
For this reason, it seemed proper to the Egyptians to remove it before it became greatly enlarged especially at the time where the girls were about to be married.
 
The surgery is performed in this way: have the girl sit on a chair while a muscled young man standing behind her places his arms below the girl’s thighs. Have him separate and steady her legs and whole body. Standing in front and taking hold of the clitoris with a broad-mouthed forceps in his left, the surgeon stretches it outward, while with the right hand, he cuts it off at the point next to the pincers of the forceps.
 
It is proper to let a length remain from that cut off, about the size of the membrane that’s between the nostrils, so as to take away the excess material only; as I have said, the part to be removed is at the point just above the pincers of the forceps. Because the clitoris is a skin-like structure and stretches out excessively, do not cut off too much, as urinary fistula may result from cutting such large growths too deeply.
 
After the surgery, it is recommended to treat the wound with wine or cold water, and wiping it clean with a sponge to sprinkle frankincense powder on it. Absorbent linen bandages dipped in vinegar should be secured in place, and a sponge in turn dipped in vinegar placed above. After the seventh day, spread the finest calamine on it. With it, either rose petals or a genital powder made from baked clay can be applied. This [prescription] is especially good: Roast and grind date pits and spread the powder on [the wound]; [this compound] also works against sores on the genitals'}}
'''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):
{{Quote|Paulus of Aegina “De Re Medica” book 7|'In certain women the nympha is excessively large and presents a shameful deformity, insomuch that, as has been related, some women have had erections of this part like men, and also venereal desires of a like kind. Wherefore, having placed the woman in a supine posture, and seizing the redundant portion of the nympha in a forceps we cut it out with a scalpel, taking care not to cut too deep lest we occasion the complaint called rhoeas'}}
 
===FGM since 622 CE===
{{Quote|al-Zahrawi (born 936 AD, Córdoba, Spain)|The clitoris may grow in size above the order of nature so that it gets a horrible deformed appearance; in some women it becomes erect like the male organ and attains to coitus. You must grasp the growth with your hand or a hook and cut it off. Do not cut too deeply, especially at the root of the growth, lest hemorrhage occur. Then apply the usual dressing for wounds until it is healed.}}{{Quote|[https://archive.org/details/ethiopiaorienta00santgoog Fr Joao Dos Santos (1609)]|a custome to sew up their Females, specially their slaves being young to make them unable for conception, which makes these Slaves sell dearer, both for the their chastitie , and for better confidence which their Masters put in them}}
reported that inland from Mogadishu a group has
{{Quote|James Bruce (British explorer)|The Falasha [as the Agaazi] submit to both [male and female circumcision]. These nations however they agree in their rite, differ in their accounts of the time they received this ceremony, as well as the manner of performing it. The Abyssinians of Tigre say, that they have received it from Ishmael’s family and his descendants, with whom they wee early connected in their trading voyages. They say also , athat the queen of Sheba, and all the women of that coast, had suffered excision at the usual time of life, before puberty, and before her journey to Jerusalem. The Falasha again declare, that their circumcision was that commonly practiced at Jerusalem in the time of Solomon, and in use among them when they left Palestine, and came into Abyssinia.}}
The British explorer  in his account of his journey in Africa between 1768 and 1772 reports
 
James Bruce also reports that the Catholic missionairies in Egypt thought Copts practiced excision ''“upon Judaic principles”'', therefore, they ''“forbade, upon pain of excommunication, that excision should be performed upon the children of parents who had become Catholics”.''
 
Browne reported in 1799 that Egyptians practice female excision, and that infibulation to prevent pregnancy is general among female slaves, who come from the Black south.
 
<nowiki>***</nowiki>
 
Other travelers to Egypt (Larrey 1803 and Burckhardt in 1819) confirm Browne and claim that Moslem slave traders infibulated young female captives.
 
<nowiki>*</nowiki> * *
 
The explorer Sir Richard Burton claimed that ''“Female circumcision'' […] ''is I believe the rule among some outlying tribes of Jews.”''
 
==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 afford harems of hundreds of concubines (the word 'concubine' is a euphemism for sex-slave).<ref name=":0">'[http://webarchiv.ethz.ch/soms/teaching/OppFall09/MackieFootbinding.pdf Ending Footbinding and Infibulation: A Convention Account' Gerry Mackie (1996)]</ref><ref>[https://pages.ucsd.edu/~gmackie/documents/BeginningOfEndMackie2000.pdf 'Female Genital Cutting: the Beginning of the End' Gerry Mackie (2000)]</ref><ref>[http://pages.ucsd.edu/~gmackie/documents/UNICEF.pdf 'Social Dynamics of Abandonment of Harmful Practices: A New Look at the Theory' - John Lejeune and Gerry Mackie (2008)]</ref>
 
In a monogamous marriage a husband and wife can spend much time together (and thus better monitor each others fidelity), can develop strong bonds, and their sexual and emotional needs are more-or-less proportional. But in polygynous societies the high-status men who can afford to keep multiple wives face a problem guaranteeing the fidelity of their many wives, whom he must satisfy emotionally and sexually, and provide with offspring. If these needs are not satisfied, his wives will be tempted to be unfaithful, and this may result in the high-status man rearing children that are not his own - the worst outcome for a man, genetically speaking. The consequence of this is that the modesty, chastity, fidelity and purity of girls and women, wives and potential wives, is an aggravated anxiety amongst polygynous men. And the greater their polygyny the greater the anxiety. [[File:Polygamy-fgm.jpg|alt=maps showing distribution of polygamy (its legal status and/or its practice) and the distribution of FGM|thumb|maps showing distribution of polygamy (its legal status and/or its practice) and the distribution of FGM]]
 
Chastity assurance practices therefore evolve which assure the chastity of multiple wives: '''harems,''' guarded by eunuchs, imprison 'concubines'; '''footbinding''' (as once practiced by the Chinese) imprisoned girls and women by reducing their mobility; '''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 dehumanise girls, making them less identifiable and desirable to other males. '''FGM''' is a chastity assurance practice. It 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).
 
In polygynous 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;
*a married high-status man remains available to further marriages (unlike in monogamous societies);
*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 advantageous to the bride's family, who will benefit not only from the bride-price, but also from having a high-status male as a relative.
 
Thus in polygynous societies it is preferable to be the ''n<sup>th</sup>'' wife of a rich man than the sole wife of a poor man. This makes polygynous societies intensely ''hypergynous'' (hypergyny: the tendency for women to marry men of higher social status).
 
To stand a chance of making an 'advantageous' marriage girls must meet the requirements of the high-status polygynous men i.e. persuade him that she is 'pure', chaste and will be faithful. This is demonstrated by adopting the chastity assurance practices required by polygynous elite, whether it be FGM and/or other practices mentioned earlier. 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 adopted by almost 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. Lower-ranking families must therefore compete with each other to ''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 females’ immodesty, the more likely she is to be pure”…''
 
FGM (and other chastity assurance practices) become 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 become '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 the society's modesty practices. The avoidance of stigma becomes as much an incentive to mutilate one's daughters as making a good marriage.
 
{{Quote|[http://archive.today/2021.04.24-033223/https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/female-genital-mutilation Female genital mutilation, WHO (2020]|Where FGM is a social convention (social norm), the social pressure to conform to what others do and have been doing, as well as the need to be accepted socially and the fear of being rejected by the community, are strong motivations to perpetuate the practice. In some communities, FGM is almost universally performed and unquestioned.}}
 
Communities that practice FGM tend to do so at near 100% levels. This 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 birth or the husband during intercourse; that FGM enhances a woman’s facial beauty; that an 'uncut' vulva is ugly; that a ‘cut’ vulva is more pleasurable to the husband; that FGM enhances fertility; that FGM improves a woman's health and hygiene. 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 and having to support those daughters for the rest of their lives, 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<ref name=":0" /> - worked spectacularly well with footbinding in China. However, it has been much less successful with FGM, probably because footbinding was a secular practice, whereas FGM is a religious one.
 
==Islamic Doctrine that creates social conditions favourable to FGM==
Debates concerning FGM and Islam are generally conducted in terms of what Islamic doctrine decrees concerning FGM. But moral entities (which can be institutions, groups, individuals and ideologies) are also responsible for, and defined by, that which they allow and that which they inadvertently bring about - a mother does not need to ''compel'' her toddler to play with a loaded gun for her to be responsible for any harm that results from it doing so. She merely has to ''allow'' it to play with the loaded gun, or fail to take reasonable measures to prevent it from doing so. Few 19<sup>th</sup> century industrialists ''intended'' their factories to be polluting. But pollution was an inherent consequence of 19<sup>th</sup> century industrialism and 19th Century industrialism was responsible for that pollution. A religion's responsibilities (and identity) do not stop with doctrine, but also include the c''onsequences'' of doctrine, including undesirable and unintended consequences.   
 
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. Islam, in allowing and encouraging polygyny, not only reproduces the originating conditions for FGM. Islam also enshrines in custom and law the 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  both polygyny and of the consequences of polygyny'''''. 
 
Thus, even if Islamic doctrine ''didn't'' explicitly mandate/allow FGM,it would still be associated with Islam, since by sacralising the ''causes and consequences'' of FGM it erects round the practice an institutional and normative armature that would nevertheless make the practice useful, and justify and normalise 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 since - assuming an equal number of females and males in the society - every extra wife one man takes will deprive another man of the possibility of finding a bride (imagine a desert island with five men and five women and what happens if one man takes two wives...). 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/celibacy.
 
The 'bride-famine' that develops amongst poor low-status men is alleviated by introducing ever more females to the system: 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. Polygynous societies are violent, and particularly sexually violent<ref name=":3">[https://henrich.fas.harvard.edu/files/henrich/files/henrich_boyd_richerson_2012.pdf The puzzle of monogamous marriage] by Joseph Henrich et al. (2012)</ref>. And this sexual violence further amplifies the society's anxieties 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 and chronic bachelorhood. {{Quote|[https://www.amazon.com/Marriage-Civilization-Monogamy-Made-Human/dp/1621572013 'Marriage and Civilization' by William Tucker (2014)]|'In a 2004 New York Times article, a graduate student in his twenties described what it was like growing up in Saudi Arabia. He said that he had never been alone in the company of a young woman. He and his friends refer to women as “BMOs – black moving objects” gliding past in full burkas. Brideprices are steep and men cannot think of getting married until they are well established in a profession. All marriages are arranged and it is not uncommon for the bride and groom to meet at their wedding.'}}
 
The case of Liberia seems to confirm that Islamic laws alone, even in the absence of doctrine explicitly favourable to FGM, may be sufficient to cause FGM. In Liberia FGM is practiced as an initiation rite into women's secret societies. A 2020 survey found that 38.2% of Liberian girls and women have been subject to FGM.<ref>[http://archive.today/2021.04.20-043407/https://www.28toomany.org/country/liberia/ Liberia - 28 Too Many]</ref> Whilst only 12% of Liberia's population is Muslim, its marriage and kinship practices are essentially Islamic: men can have up to 4 wives, a third of all Liberian marriages are polygamous, a third of married women aged between 15-49 are in polygamous marriages, and married woman's rights to inherit property from her spouse are restricted.<ref>https://www.genderindex.org/wp-content/uploads/files/datasheets/LR.pdf</ref> Liberia is marked by the sexual violence that is a characteristic of polygynous societies, and to which chastity assurance practices such as FGM are a response (it should be taken into account that  Islamic polygyny and FGM were probably introduced to what would become Liberia by Islamic immigration from Sudan and from empires based in today's Mali, starting from the 13th or 14th century).{{Quote|[https://odi.org/en/publications/the-fallout-of-rape-as-a-weapon-of-war/ The fallout of rape as a weapon of war]|[Liberia] has one of the highest incidences of sexual violence against women in the world. Rape is the most frequently reported crime, accounting for more than one-third of sexual violence cases.}}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 and create a social and normative context in which chastity assurance measures such as FGM, become useful or even necessary.
 
====Sex-slavery====
Islam permits [[Women in Islamic Law|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).<ref name=":0" /> 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<ref>'[http://archive.today/2021.04.09-075329/https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/locus-control/201008/all-my-888-children All my 888 children' by Nando Pelusi Ph.D. in Psychology Today]</ref> 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. [[File:Infibexzisionplus.jpg|thumb|Maps comparing distribution of FGM and Infibulation and main centes and routes of the Islamic Slave Trade]]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.<ref>'[http://archive.today/2020.08.25-213729/http://bernardlugan.blogspot.com/2020/08/nouveau-livre-de-bernard-lugan.html Esclavage, l’histoire à l’endroit'] by Bernard Lugan</ref> Whilst ''local'' raids on neighbors fuel ''tribal'' polygyny, Islamic polygyny (due to religious fervour, a preference for exotic women and a reluctance to take fellow Muslims as slaves) 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 the captives. After eunuchs, virgins (i.e. prepubescent or adolescent girls) were the most valuable commodity. Infibulation (the sealing up of the vagina) developed as a verifiable (by potential customers) protection and guarantee of 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 under the Islamic slave trade boys suffered even more than girls. In a process analogous to infibulation 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,<ref>'[https://www.amazon.fr/Lesclavage-terre-dIslam-Malek-Chebel/dp/2818500710/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_fr_FR=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&keywords=chebel+L%27esclavage+en+terre+d%27islam&qid=1617337451&s=books&sr=1-1 L'esclavage en terre d'Islam' by Malek Chebel] </ref> Charles Gordon (1833 – 1885), governor of Khartoum, estimated the procedure had a 0.5% survival rate. This rate of morbidity made eunuchs extremely rare, and worth about twelve times the other slaves.   
 
{{Quote|quoted and translated from 'L'Escalavage en Terre d'Islam' - M. Chebel (2007)|'[...] completely removing the whole genitals, penis and testicles. After castration, those conducting the procedure introduce a lead wire into the urethra which the mutliated boy removes for urination until the cauterization is complete [...] the number who died was far greater to those who survived, essentially because of a lack of care and hygeine, the procedure concerning vital organs'}}
 
====Mahr====
The payment of bride-price (''[[Mahr (Marital 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 females cause by polygyny 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 un-affordable 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====
[[Child Marriage in Islamic Law|Islamic law sets no lower age at which a girl can be married off]]. [[File:Niqab-eyes-hijab-niqab.jpg|thumb]]Child marriage is universal to polygynous societies. Introducing little girls into the marriage market is a response to the the scarcity of women caused by polygyny. 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' anxieties and doubts concerning paternity. Polygyny also also creates anxieties connected to the general management of multiple wives. Therefore submissiveness, obedience, manipulability - characteristics more pronounced in younger brides - are characteristics of a wife that are more valued in polygynous societies than in monogamous ones. 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 restriction,s 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====
[[Wife Beating in Islamic Law|Islamic law permits wife beating.]]
 
Social scientists such as Joseph Heinrich, et al.<ref name=":3" /> and William H. Tucker <ref>'[https://www.nationalreview.com/2014/02/monogamy-made-us-human-william-tucker/ Monogamy Made Us Human' by William Tucker]</ref><ref>[https://www.amazon.com/Marriage-Civilization-Monogamy-Made-Human/dp/1621572013 'Marriage and Civilization: How Monogamy Made Us Human'] by William Tucker</ref><ref>[https://www.nationalreview.com/2014/05/polygamy-and-african-sex-kidnappings-william-tucker/ Polygamy and African Sex Kidnappings by William Tucker]</ref> 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: rape and other forms of sexual aggression, 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 are characterised by (as compared to monogamous households):
 
*competition and rivalry among co-wives,
*high spousal age gaps,
*low genetic inter-relatedness within the household,
*reduced confidence as to the husband's paternity of the children (which increases his sexual jealousy and anxiety),
*reduced paternal involvement with children (e.g. Osama bin laden’s father had 54 children by 22 wives and is reputed to have not known many of his children's names),
*ease of divorce for the husband (but not for wives), which creates insecurity for wives, encouraging submissiveness and acceptance of spousal and child abuse,
*more step-parents
*increased levels of violence towards wives and children.
 
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 . 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.
 
==FGM and the Uses of Trauma==
Islamic FGM is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a 'Rite of Passage'. Rites of Passage are essentially symbolic whilst FGM is functional (as a chastity assurance measure) and technical (its performance is more akin to, for example, a visit to the dentist than a religious service). But the FGM practiced where Islamic influence is weakest (e.g. coastal West Africa) often takes on aspects of initiation ritual and loses aspects of Islamic FGM, for example the Islamic anxieties around 'purity' are entirely absent in the FGM practiced by the Sandé of Liberia and Sierra Leone.<ref>Mende Sowei part 1 - youtu.be/ZTjU1dyavRw</ref><ref>Mende Sande Initiation Part 2 - youtu.be/zTanZWkvm5o</ref>
 
Rite of Passage are marked by three stages: 
 
*'''Severance''' - where the initiand breaks with previous people, practices and routines;
*'''Transition''' - the creation of a ''tabula rasa'' through the removal of previously taken-for-granted forms and limits. The rite follows a strictly prescribed sequence, under the authority of a master of ceremonies. This stage has a destructive nature which facilitates considerable changes to be made to the identity of the initiand.
*'''Incorporation''' - the initiand is re-incorporated into society with a new identity, as a “new” being with a higher social status. <ref>[https://www.liquisearch.com/liminality/rites_of_passage/arnold_van_gennep Liminality - Rites of Passage - Arnold Van Gennep]</ref>'''<ref>[http://archive.today/2021.04.26-041314/https://courses.lumenlearning.com/culturalanthropology/chapter/rite-of-passage/ Rite of Passage]</ref>'''
 
Islamic FGM lacks the element of Severance as it generally occurs at home or hospital<ref>'[http://archive.today/2021.04.26-080016/https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/nov/18/female-genital-mutilation-circumcision-indonesia The day I saw 248 girls suffering genital mutilation' by Abigail Haworth, The Guardian (2012)]</ref> with family members present and often participating<ref>[http://archive.today/2021.04.26-080404/https://www.nowtolove.com.au/health/diet-nutrition/the-final-cut-can-we-end-female-genital-mutilation-12912 I was 7 when I was mutilated while my aunt held me down]</ref>; it does not have the 'prescribed sequence' of the Transitional phase, not even prayers; and there is no incorporation - status after FGM is largely the same as before (however - 'uncut' girls are frequently bullied, shunned and stigmatized by their 'cut' peers<ref>[https://archive.ph/2021.04.26-080534/https://plan-international.org/case-studies/uncut-girls-club#50% THE UNCUT GIRLS’ CLUB]</ref>. The fact that this bullying stops after the girls have undergone FGM suggests the procedure does confer ''some'' increased status). 
 
Rites of passage are public or semi-public, with either the whole community as witnesses or initiates. Islamic FGM is generally a private and secretive affair occurring within the family. With rites of Passage a Master of Ceremonies imparts secret or occult knowledge to the initiand. No such thing occurs with Islamic FGM. Rites of Passage occur at important transitional life events (such as birth, puberty, marriage, death); Islamic FGM can occur any time between birth and puberty, and its timing may depend on quite practical factors: for example, families and isolated villages, rather than having to pay for a ‘cutter’ to visit as each daughter reaches a certain age, will have ''all'' their daughters cut during a single visit of the ‘cutter’, girls from a wide range of ages therefore being cut at the same time. 
 
However, FGM and Rites of Passage do share one characteristic: they both involve a deliberate ordeal (a 'destructive nature') which brings about permanent physical and psychological changes. 
 
This is reflected in the fact that anaesthetics are generally not used, even when available.  [[File:Fgm-in-the-middle-east.jpg|thumb|Iraqi Kurdish four-year-old Shwen screams during her circumcision in Suleimaniyah on April 14, 2009]]{{Quote|[http://archive.today/2021.04.27-044528/https://www.unfpa.org/pcm/node/9481 Female genital mutilation (FGM) frequently asked questions, UNFPA (2020)]|'''Anaesthetic and antiseptics are generally not used''' unless the procedure is carried out by medical practitioners.}}[[File:Endfgm-campaign-video-016.jpg|thumb|August, 25, 2008. Tuz Khurmatu, northern Iraq, a midwife (who also delivered Omer and is a trusted and valued member of the neighborhood) slices part of seven year-old Sheelan Anwar Omer's genitals (Photographer: Andrea Bruce).<ref>Image cropped from larger photo - for original see http://archive.today/2021.04.26-065336/https://i0.wp.com/freethoughtblogs.com/taslima/files/2012/06/Kurdish-girl.jpg?ssl=1</ref>|alt=]]{{Quote|[http://archive.today/2021.04.27-042745/https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13131835.i-screaming-mother/ 'I was screaming for my mother' (2013)]|I remember I was screaming for my grandmother and my mother to help me but no-one did. I wasn't given any medication before or after - '''not anaesthetic, nothing'''.}}{{Quote|Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Survivor Tells Her Story (2016) - youtu.be/jlyj9hgdbrQ|My aunt was a doctor, so when she led me downstairs for a clinic and instructed me to lie flat on my back on her operating table I didn't think to question her authority. '''With no anesthetic''' and very littlewarning she performed a ritualized cut.}}{{Quote|{{cite web
| title      = 'A horrific nightmare' Female genital mutilation survivor shares her …
| url        = https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.3784062/a-horrific-nightmare-female-genital-mutilation-survivor-shares-her-story-in-ottawa-1.3784067
| date        = 2021-04-27
| archiveurl  = http://archive.today/WZa8A
| archivedate = 2021-04-27 }}|They were dirty razors. That is the razor that she will use for 10 or 20 girls that day. No hygiene involved, nothing. '''No anesthesia at all'''. You are just butchered. You could see your flesh. You could see your blood all over her hands. It was a complete, utter horrific, nightmare.}}{{Quote|{{cite web
| title      = Butter knife or sharp blade? Either way, FGM survivors in Sri Lanka w…
| url        = https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sri-lanka-women-fgm-idUSKBN1DM023
| date        = 2021-04-27
| archiveurl  = http://archive.today/U2kUP
| archivedate = 2021-04-27 }}|The room where a doctor, his wife and an assistant were waiting; her legs spread and held down as the doctor approached with a blade, '''inflicting agonizing pain with no anesthetic'''.}}{{Quote|[http://archive.today/2021.04.26-081530/https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/female-genital-mutilation-no-anaesthetic-before-she-cut-me-1.2093014 Mehret Yemane describing how, as a nine or 10-year-old in Sudan, she underwent FGM for the fourth time in her short life. Irish Times (2015)]|My brothers held my legs, the elder held the blade. '''There was no anaesthetic before she cut me'''.}}{{Quote|{{cite web
| title      = Female Genital Mutilation at Nine Years Old: A Survivor Speaks Out  …
| url        = https://glam4good.com/female-genital-mutilation-at-nine-years-old-a-survivor-speaks-out/
| date        = 2021-04-27
| archiveurl  = http://archive.today/T79HL
| archivedate = 2021-04-27 }}|In Burkina Faso, we did not have proper clinics for these procedures. We didn’t have doctors in white jackets and gloves. '''We didn’t even have anesthesia to numb the pain'''.}}{{Quote|<nowiki>Breakout Session 3: Female Genital Mutilation - The Facts (2017) - youtu.be/nuaZ_QIx-3U?t=31m44s</nowiki>
|Remember, '''there were no anesthetics''' because for we you have to walk the walk, you have to dance the dance. It's what makes you a woman. When you feel that pain it shows you that pain is all you know as a woman.}}Why are anaesthetics not used? [[File:Indonesia - susanfemalecircumcision-1.jpg|thumb|Medicalised FGM in Indonesia - note the apparent lack of anaesthesia (see also [http://archive.today/2021.04.26-080016/https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/nov/18/female-genital-mutilation-circumcision-indonesia The day I saw 248 girls suffering genital mutilation] The Guardian 2012) |alt=|350x350px]]There are several possible reasons. It may be that mothers and other older females in the family expect their daughters to undergo the same procedure (and suffering) that they did; anaesthetics may be unavailable or too expensive for poor families; the illegality of FGM in many countries may make anaesthetics hard to obtain for 'cutters' - or discourage those who can legitimately obtain and use anaesthetics (such as doctors, midwives and nurses) from practicing FGM. The non-use of anaesthetics may also be to some extent due to the fact that cultures that practice it do not understand it as a medical matter but a religious or technical matter and the concerns, priorities and paraphernalia of medical procedures don't apply. This may also explain why it is so often performed with germ-infested instruments, with no regard to asepsis and with crude ersatz instruments. 
 
However, probably the most significant factor, one which might explain why anaesthetics are not used even when the mutilation is performed in medicalised environment by nurses, is that trauma is part of the functionality of FGM.   
 
Ordeal, pain and fear are used in rites of passage to alter the identity and personality of the initiand and it may be that FGM makes use of pain to the same ends. PTSD is almost universal in girls who have undergone FGM.<ref>[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28164288/ Cognitive behavioral therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, or anxiety disorders in women and girls living with female genital mutilation: A systematic review - Adegoke Adelufosi et al (2017)]</ref><ref>[https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-018-1757-0 Psychopathological sequelae of female genital mutilation and their neuroendocrinological associations - Anke Köbach et al]</ref><ref>[https://www.taskforcefgm.de/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/FGM__Trauma.pdf 'Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Memory Problems After Female Genital Mutilation' -  Alice Behrendt, Dipl.-Psych. Steffen Moritz, Ph.D.]</ref> This is the psychological state produced by the 'ordeals' of in Rites of Passage, which are designed to break the person down in order that the 'new person' be reconstructed. In an act analogous to slave-branding - whereby arbitrary violence and pain was used to render the slave manipulable, and submissive to his/her master, the child learns that people she loves and trusts are capable of betraying her, and of inflicting great violence and pain. This makes her submissive not just to her family, but also her future husband, her community, her religion and her god.      {{Quote|[p365  ‘Male and female circumcision: Religious, medical, social and legal debate‘ by Sami A. Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh]|One of [FGM's] disastrous effects is deterioration of the relation between the girl and her parents. The girls has the feeling that these last betrayed her.}}
 
{{Quote|[https://www.amazon.com/Infidel-Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali/dp/0743289692 p33 'Infidel' - by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2007)]|Haweya was never the same [after being subjected to FGM]. She had horrible nightmares, and during the day began stomping off to be alone. My once cheerful, playful little sister changed. Sometimes she just stared vacantly at nothing for hours.}}Critics of FGM usually write in terms of it being a crime against ''women'', and that it is women who suffer from FGM and its consequences. However, it should be remembered that the victims of FGM are children, and FGM is a crime against the child long before it is a crime against the woman. FGM makes it probable that the child's first and most intense experience of 'sexuality' is one of cruelty, betrayal, pain and prolonged suffering. This is likely to generate anxieties considerable anxieties around her body, her sense of self, her sexuality and of sexuality in general - and implant in the the child, and the woman she will eventually grow up to be, a dysfunctional relationship to her body, to her sexuality and the sexuality of others. This will manifest itself socially in her being more chaste, modest, pure and asexual - which is the ultimate goal of FGM.               
{{Quote|[https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1016/S0020-7292(00)00237-X 'Female genital mutilation (FGM) management during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period' H Rushwan (2000)]|The psychological and social consequences of FGM include acute anxiety, frigidity, depression and neurosis which may result in marital disharmony.}}
As such FGM, especially when performed without anaesthetics, can be said to deliberately make use of trauma as a tool of psychological and social engineering.
 
==Arguments de-linking FGM and Islam==
{{Quote|[http://archive.today/2021.04.09-075922/https://www.memri.org/tv/egyptian-cleric-supports-fgm-cites-protocols-elders-zion 'Egyptian Cleric: Female Circumcision Has Economic Benefits; Jews Fight It in Keeping with Protocols of the Elders of Zion' (Mar 27, 2017)]|”The discussion about female circumcision goes back to the past century. The first time that this subject was debated extensively was in the past century. Who were the first to talk about it? The Jews. They do not want Islam or the Muslims to be pure, developed, and civilized, so they started talking about it.”}}As the above quote suggests, the idea that FGM might be un-Islamic appears to be relatively new. The earliest fatwa clearly critical of FGM appears to be from 1984<ref name=":1">p54 [https://books.google.fr/books?id=qof6J4n1860C&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=Sheikh+Abu-Sabib+1984&source=bl&ots=-apLOOha6B&sig=dpINFFLI-N9KO8_FmEET-MDFKbI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiXh5Gi5OfcAhVOyoUKHeSgDWUQ6AEwC3oECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Sheikh%20Abu-Sabib%201984&f=false "Sexual Mutilations: A Human Tragedy" By International Symposium On Sexual Mutiliations 1996]</ref> and since then there have been fatwas critical of FGM. However, most are favourable towards the practice. (see [[Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars:Female Genital Mutilation#Modern Fatwas|Modern Fatwas]])[[File:Fgmwordsearches.jpg|thumb|NGram for terms: 'FGM', 'Female Genital Mutilation' and 'Female Circumcision'|link=]]An Ngram for the terms ‘fgm’, ‘female genital mutilation’ and ‘female circumcision’ shows an increased use of ‘mutilation’ and 'FGM' as against the more anodyne 'circumcision' starting around 1990. 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 ''<nowiki/>'traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children'''.<ref>[http://archive.today/2016.10.21-124829/http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx Convention on the Rights of the Child]</ref> Soon afterwards organisations such as the World Health Organisation (1995),<ref>[https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/63602/WHO_FRH_WHD_96.10.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Female genital mutilation : report of a WHO technical working group, Geneva, 17-19 July 1995]</ref> the Council of Europe (1995), and UNICEF & UNFPA (1997)<ref>[https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/41903/9241561866.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Female Genital Mutilation - A Joint WHO/UNICEF/UNFPA Statement]</ref> also issued reports critical of FGM.
For the first time narratives critical of FGM started penetrating the Islamic world, parts of which began to feel uneasy about Islam's association with FGM, and have consequently sought to de-link the two by showing that FGM is un-Islamic.
 
The 'FGM as un-Islamic' narrative is reinforced by the fact that it is a minority of Muslims that practice FGM. Immigration to the West has till recently come from the Maghreb and Hanafi countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Turkey, or the Maghreb. The Hanafi is the school of fiqh which least favours FGM, merely ruling it as 'optional', and the Maghreb practices a Maliki Islam that appears to eschew FGM. These immigrant populations have effectively imported the 'FGM is un-Islamic' narrative to the West. This narrative is challenged by the rise in immigration from countries such as Indonesia and Somalia, and the Kurdish Middle East<ref>[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305745749_Effect_of_female_genital_mutilationcutting_on_sexual_functions Effect of female genital mutilation/cutting on sexual functions] - Mohammad-Hossein Biglu et al</ref>, where FGM-rates are high and the practice is accepted as compatible with Islam.
 
The 'FGM is un-Islamic' narrative is further reinforced because the practice gives rise to a dilemma whereby telling the truth (or even just making known facts and evidence) is likely to aggravate the problem.
 
In recent decades many agencies and charities have engaged themselves in the fight against FGM<ref>[http://archive.today/2021.04.09-035738/https://www.humanrightscareers.com/issues/organizations-fighting-female-genital-mutilation/ 20 Organizations Fighting Female Genital Mutilation]</ref>. These agencies face a particular challenge when interacting with individuals and populations who practice FGM: how, for example, does an anti-FGM charity respond to a Somali mother who asks whether FGM is Islamic? If the charity worker tells her about the FGM in the hadith, and how FGM is part of the ''fitrah'' (which Qur'an 30:30 exhorts Muslims to adhere to - see [https://wikiislam.net/wiki/User:Flynnjed/Sandbox#FGM_in_the_Qur.27an_and_Hadith FGM in the Qur'an]), and how the school of fiqh which the Somali woman follows, the Shafi'i, makes FGM mandatory - then that mother will come away from that interaction ''more'' likely to have her daughter mutilated, not ''less''. This dilemma is faced not just by on-the-ground charity workers, but the whole hierarchy of institutions devoted to combating FGM, including politicians, the media and academia.
 
The following are the principal arguments defending the proposition that FGM is un-Islamic (each item in the list links to a full analysis and evaluation of each argument).
 
*[[Female Genital Mutilation in Islamic Law#FGM Is Not Required by Islam|FGM Is Not Required by Islam]]
*[[Female Genital Mutilation in Islamic Law#There Is No FGM in the Qur.27an|There Is No FGM in the Qur'an]]
*[[Female Genital Mutilation in Islamic Law#FGM Existed Before Islam|FGM Existed Before Islam]]
*[[Female Genital Mutilation in Islamic Law#FGM Is an African Practice|FGM Is an African Practice]]
*[[Female Genital Mutilation in Islamic Law#Christians Practice FGM Too|Christians Practice FGM Too]]
*[[Female Genital Mutilation in Islamic Law#Not All Muslims Practice FGM|Not All Muslims Practice FGM]]
*[[Female Genital Mutilation in Islamic Law#The FGM Hadith Are Weak|The FGM Hadith Are Weak]]
*[[Female Genital Mutilation in Islamic Law#The Qur.27an Forbids Mutilation|The Qur'an Forbids Mutilation]]
*[[Female Genital Mutilation in Islamic Law#.27Circumcision.27 is not Mutilation|'Circumcision' is not Mutilation]]
*[[Female Genital Mutilation in Islamic Law#There Is No Record of Muhammad Having His Wives or Daughters Circumcised|There Is No Record of Muhammad Having His Wives or Daughters Circumcised]]
*[[Female Genital Mutilation in Islamic Law#Muhammad Wanted to Forbid FGM but Couldn.27t|Muhammad Wanted to Forbid FGM but Couldn't]]
 
==See Also==
 
*[[Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars:Female Genital Mutilation]]
*[[Female Genital Mutilation in Islamic Law]]
*[https://unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/De-linking%20FGM%20from%20Islam%20final%20report.pdf 'Delinking Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting from Islam']
*[https://fgmtruth.wordpress.com/2019/06/14/a-response-to-delinking-female-genital-mutilation-cutting-from-islam-part-1/ A Critique of the above (Delinking Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting from Islam)]
 
==References==
<references />

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