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circumcision


=Female Genital Mutilation in Islamic Law=
Intro - the nature of circumcision, statistics, distribution, comparative stats (Muslims, Xtians, Jews, etc)


'''Female Genital Mutilation''' (Arabic: ختان المرأة)  is the practice of cutting away and altering the external female genitalia for ritual or religious purposes. Those who practice or defend FGM refer to it as 'Female Circumcision'. Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) generally consists one or both of the following procedures: '''Clitoridectomy:''' the amputation of part or all of the clitoris (or the removal of the clitoral prepuce); '''Excision:''' the cutting away of either or both the inner or outer labia. A third procedure, '''Infibulation''', involves 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 also involves clitoridectomy. Those who engage in FGM consider its primary purpose to be the safeguarding of the purity, virtue and reputation of girls and women.
arabic word for male circumcision
[[File:Fgmmuslimmap.jpg|alt=World maps comparing distributions of FGM and of Muslims|thumb|World maps comparing distributions of FGM and of Muslims]]
FGM is a practice associated with Islam: about 80% of FGM is attributable to Muslims.<ref>[https://fgmtruth.wordpress.com/what-percentage-of-global-fgm-are-moslems-responsible-for/ What Percentage of Global FGM is done by Moslems ?]</ref> Most of the remaining 20% is attributable to non-Muslims living in FGM-practicing Islamic societies (e.g. the Egyptian Copts<ref>[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). 


Unlike Islamic male circumcision, the nature of which is uniform around the world, the practice of FGM varies greatly from community to community and country to country. This is because the procedure of male circumcision is precisely described (in Genesis). Several hadith report Muhammad approving of FGM, but they give very few clues as to ''the nature'' of that which he was approving. Consequently the practice of FGM varies greatly from community to community and country to country, possibly according to the intensity of anxieties around female sexuality in the community, its proximity to Islamic slave-trade routes (Infibulation is associated with the transportation of slaves), the presiding school of Islam (fiqh), and the nature and degree of historical Christian influence and colonisation. 
Male Circumcision: truly reliable figures on the extent of circumcision in the world do not exist. In 1996, during the 4<sup>th</sup> international symposium held in Lausanne, the following figures were distributed: each year, 13,300,000 male children are circumcised in the world. This makes an average of:


In addition to Islamic law that ''explicitly'' addresses FGM, Islamic law favours FGM by creating social conditions that make the practice useful or even necessary. [[Polygamy in Islamic Law|Polygyny]] (the marriage of a man to several women) is permitted in Islam and creates sexually violent societies in which girls and women are at a heightened risk. In response to this risk polygynous societies develop practices which safeguard the 'purity', chastity and reputation of its girls and women. FGM is such a practice, as are child marriage, gender segregation, arranged marriages, chaperoning, veiling, 'honour' culture, brideprice ([[Mahr (Marital Price)|mahr]]) and footbinding. Islam's attitudes towards slavery, especially sex slavery, appears to also have a significant role in the nature, incidence and distribution of FGM. 
1,100,000 childre per month


There exist numerous fatwas supporting and commanding the practice. However, over the past half century there has been a growing unease in the Islamic world concerning the practice (largely attributable to a growing awareness of the practice by organisations such as the UN and UNICEF). The earliest fatwa that is clearly critical of FGM appears to have been issued in 1984.<ref>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>
36,438 per day


The euphemism '''Female Circumcision''' is often used instead of '''Female Genital Mutilation''' by those who practice it, or who wish to defend or excuse it. Those who practice FGM will, of course, not refer to what they do as 'mutilation' - the word having negative connotations. {{Quran|30|30}} forbids mutilation - however Islamic law makes exceptions for mutilations it allows e.g. amputation of limbs of thieves ({{Quran|5|38}}) and male circumcision.   
1,518 per hour


==FGM in the Hadith==
25 per minute.
{{anchor|hadith}}FGM is mentioned (at least) [[Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars:Female Genital Mutilation|seven times in the Hadith]]. Four report Muhammad approving of FGM and two report [[Sahabah]] (Muhammad's companions) participating in FGM. These have less doctrinal authority than the hadith featuring Muhammad. The remaining, seventh, hadith has little import doctrinally, but is of linguistic, historical and sociological interest. 


===Hadith: Muhammad and FGM===
Another source indicates that 23% of the male population of the world is cricumcised, which makes a toatl of 650 million. (<nowiki>http://noharmm.org/HGMstats.htm</nowiki>) “


====The fitrah is five things, including circumcision====
==Quran==
<br />''“Then We revealed to you, [O Muhammad], to follow the religion of Abraham, inclining toward truth; and he was not of those who associate with Allah .”'' Koran 16:123


Hadith methodology dictates that if it is not mentioned specifically or if the pronouns do not point to a certain gender, then the hadith is valid for both sexes. Hence, the following hadith is applicable for both men and women.


{{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''', shaving the pubes, trimming the moustache, cutting the nails and plucking the armpit hairs.”}}


====A preservation of honor for women====
There is no explicit reference to Male 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.”}}“...the Koran mentions 69 times Abraham's name, who is considered a “good example” to follow (60:4), without ever speaking of circumcision.”<br />


{{Quote|Ahmad Ibn Hanbal 5:75; Abu Dawud, Adab 167.|Abu al- Malih ibn `Usama's father relates that the Prophet said: "'''Circumcision is a law for men and a preservation of honour for women'''."}}
==Hadith==
<br /><!-- don't forget 'FGM hadith' which advocate MGM -->


====Do not cut "severely"====
This is an inventory of sahih and hasan Hadith which touch exclusively on Male Genital Mutilation ( or 'circumcision').


Note that the judgement concerning what is severe is relative.  
It should not be taken as comprehensive.


{{Quote|{{Abu Dawud|41|5251}}|Narrated Umm Atiyyah al-Ansariyyah: A woman used to perform circumcision 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.}}
To compile it I used the wild-card search for “circumc*” on the site quranx.com.


====When the circumcised parts touch each other====
This search gave 50 results.


{{Quote|{{Muslim|3|684}}|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 parts'' touch each other''' a bath becomes obligatory.}}To 'sit amidst four parts of a woman' is a euphemism for sexual intercourse.
''“Abu Hurayrah said: I heard the Prophet say: “The fitrah is five things – or five things are part of the fitrah – circumcision, shaving the pubes, trimming the moustache, cutting the nails and plucking the armpit hairs.””'' Bukhari 77:106


===Other Evidence in the Hadith===
<nowiki>***</nowiki>
The following three hadith touch on FGM. Because they do not involve Muhammad they have less doctrinal authority than the hadith in the previous section. 


====One Who Circumcises Other Ladies====
''“''[…]''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 parts touch each other a bath becomes obligatory.”'' Sahih Muslim 3:684
{{anchor|other ladies}}This hadith includes an exchange of insults between Meccan warriors and Muhammad's companions prior to the [[Battle of Uhud|battle of Uhud]]. {{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?’ […]”}}
====In Bukhari's al-Adab al-Mufrad====
The following two hadiths come from Al-Adab Al-Mufrad. This is a collection of hadith about the manners of Muhammad and his companions, compiled by the Islamic scholar al-Bukhari. It contains 1,322 hadiths, most of which focus on Muhammad's companions rather than Muhammad himself. 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'' (authentic) or ''hasan'' (sound).
=====Someone to Amuse Them=====
{{Quote|[http://sunnah.com/urn/2212030 Al-Adab Al-Mufrad 53:1247]|“Umm ‘Alqama related that when '''the daughters of ‘A’isha’s brother were circumcised''', ‘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!'””}}
=====Go and Circumcise Them and Purify Them=====
{{Quote|[https://sunnah.com/urn/2212010 Al-Adab Al-Mufrad 53:1245]|An old woman from Kufa, the grandmother of 'Ali ibn Ghurab, reported that Umm al-Muhajir said, "I was captured with some girls from Byzantium. 'Uthman offered us Islam, but only myself and one other girl accepted Islam. 'Uthman said, ''''Go and circumcise them and purify them'''.'"}}
==FGM in the Qur'an==
{{anchor|quran}}There is no explicit reference to Female Genital Mutilation in the Qur'an.


However, the Qur'an 30:30 requires Muslims to ''<nowiki/>'adhere to the fitrah'<nowiki/>''. The word ''<nowiki/>'fitrah''' appears only this once in the Qur'an, and is left undefined and unexplained. 
<nowiki>***</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.}}To know what fitrah means, traditional scholars turn to the hadith which make use of the word. 


The hadith which offers the clearest explanation is the one mentioned in the previous section.
''“Abu al- Malih ibn `Usama’s father relates that the Prophet said: “Circumcision is a law for men and a preservation of honour for women.””'' Ahmad Ibn Hanbal 5:75; Abu Dawud, Adab 167


{{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''', shaving the pubes, trimming the moustache, cutting the nails and plucking the armpit hairs.”}}This hadith uses the Arabic word ''khitan'' for 'circumcision'. 
<nowiki>***</nowiki>


Two other hadith ('Someone to Amuse Them' and 'Do not cut severely') use the word ''khitan'' in contexts where the procedure is unquestionably being performed on females, and only on females. Three other hadith ('The fitrah is five things, including circumcision', 'A preservation of honor for women' and 'When the circumcised parts touch each other') use the word 'khitan to refer to ''both'' FGM and Male Circumcision.
There were many Hadith where the ''matn'' was essenitally the same. Rather than reproducing each one of these I have quoted a 'representative' Hadith, and listed links to the other versions beneath.


Therefore, in the hadith the word '<nowiki/>''khitan''' can refer to FGM, or to Male Circumcision, or to both.
''...The sub narrator adds, "Ibn An-Natur was the Governor of llya' (Jerusalem) and Heraclius was the head of the Christians of Sham. Ibn An-Natur narrates that once while Heraclius was visiting ilya' (Jerusalem), he got up in the morning with a sad mood. Some of his priests asked him why he was in that mood? Heraclius was a foreteller and an astrologer. He replied, 'At night when I looked at the stars, I saw that the leader of those who practice circumcision had appeared (become the conqueror). Who are they who practice circumcision?' The people replied, 'Except the Jews nobody practices circumcision, so you should not be afraid of them (Jews). 'Just Issue orders to kill every Jew present in the country.' While they were discussing it, a messenger sent by the king of Ghassan to convey the news of Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) to Heraclius was brought in. Having heard the news, he (Heraclius) ordered the people to go and see whether the messenger of Ghassan was circumcised. The people, after seeing him, told Heraclius that he was circumcised. Heraclius then asked him about the Arabs. The messenger replied, 'Arabs also practice circumcision.' (After hearing that) Heraclius remarked that sovereignty of the 'Arabs had appeared. Heraclius then wrote a letter to his friend in Rome who was as good as Heraclius in knowledge...''


Thus, according to traditional interpretive methodology, Qur'an 30:30 by requiring one to ''<nowiki/>'adhere to the fitrah''' indirectly, but ineluctably, advocates FGM.
<nowiki>https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/USC-MSA/Volume-1/Book-1/Hadith-6</nowiki>


''<nowiki/><nowiki/>''
<nowiki>*</nowiki> * *
==FGM in Islamic law==
{{anchor|law}}[[File:Madhhabplusfgm.jpeg|alt=Maps showing distribution of madhaps and prevalence of FGM|thumb|Maps showing distribution of madhaps and prevalence of FGM]]
A '''Madh'hab''' (مذهب) is a school of [[Islamic law]] or [[fiqh]] (Islamic jurisprudence). Within [[Sunni]] Islam there are four mainstream schools of thought, which are accepted by one another, there is also the [[Shiite|Shi'ite]] school of fiqh. The various schools of Islamic law all developed as theologians and jurists debated among themselves more than a hundred years after [[Muhammad's Death|Muhammad's death]] on how to identify and interpret what Muhammad had left behind by way of oral traditions. The five major schools of Islamic law agree on many things. Adherence to a school of Islamic law appears to be more a matter of geography than conscience.


All schools of Islam favour FGM, but with varying levels of compulsion. No school of Islam can forbid FGM since nothing that Muhammad allowed can be prohibited. Contemporary scholars, however, are adept at phrasing fatwas in such a way as to appear to criticise or condemn FGM whilst at the same time not forbidding it (see section on '''[[#equivocation|Equivocation]]''' below).
Narrated Ibn `Abbas:''The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "You will be gathered (on the Day of Judgment), bare-footed, naked and not circumcised." He then recited:--'As We began the first creation, We, shall repeat it: A Promise We have undertaken: Truly we shall do it.' (21.104) He added, "The first to be dressed on the Day of Resurrection, will be Abraham, and some of my companions will be taken towards the left side (i.e. to the (Hell) Fire), and I will say: 'My companions! My companions!' It will be said: 'They renegade from Islam after you left them.' Then I will say as the Pious slave of Allah (i.e. Jesus) said. 'And I was a witness Over them while I dwelt amongst them. When You took me up You were the Watcher over them, And You are a witness to all things. If You punish them. They are Your slaves And if You forgive them, Verily you, only You are the All-Mighty, the All-Wise." (5.120-121)''


Differences in hermeneutics (methodologies of interpretation of texts, especially religious and philosophical texts) result in certain Hadith having more weight and influence with some schools than in others. The hadith Sunan Abu Dawud 41:5251 is an example of this:
<nowiki>https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/USC-MSA/Volume-4/Book-55/Hadith-568</nowiki>


{{Quote|{{Abu Dawud|41|5251}}|Narrated Umm Atiyyah al-Ansariyyah: A woman used to perform circumcision 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.}}
<nowiki>https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/USC-MSA/Volume-6/Book-60/Hadith-149</nowiki>


Shafi’i and Hanbali scholars have evaluated this hadith as being ''sahih.'' Consequently, these schools consider FGM as being either obligatory or highly recommended, and FGM is very common or nearly universal amongst their followers. Maliki and Hanafi scholars have evaluated this Hadith as being ''mursal'' (good but missing an early link in its [[isnad]]) – possibly explaining the lower rates of FGM amongst followers of these schools.Some prominent modern Islamic scholars have dissented from the otherwise favorable consensus of the Islamic tradition, and ruled it to be unlawful.
<nowiki>*</nowiki> * *


Only one school of Islam - the Shafi'i - make FGM unequivocally obligatory. The other schools of Islam recommend it with differing levels of enthusiasm (though the Hanbali school's position is more ambiguous). We can speculate that followers of the Hanafi and Maliki schools who are devout (or who wish to ''appear'' devout) will tend to treat as ‘obligatory’ practices that are merely ‘recommend’ – since for the devout anything that is ‘recommended’ should be definitely done.
''Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "Abraham did his circumcision with an adze at the age of eighty." Narrated Abu Az-Zinad: (as above in Hadith No. 575) With an adze.''


===Maliki Madhab===
''<nowiki>https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/USC-MSA/Volume-4/Book-55/Hadith-575</nowiki>''
The Maliki school was founded by Malik ibn Anas in the 8th century, who ruled that FGM is recommended, but not obligatory.


“Maliki hold the view that it is wajib (obligatory) for males and sunnah (optional) for females“
''<nowiki>https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/DarusSalam/Hadith-6298</nowiki>''


{{Quote|[https://unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/De-linking%20FGM%20from%20Islam%20final%20report.pdf 'Delinking Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting from Islam'] by Ibrahim Lethome Asmani & Maryam Sheikh Abdi (2008)|“Maliki hold the view that it is wajib (obligatory) for males and sunnah (optional) for females“}}{{Quote|Al-Dardir (died 1786, malikite)|'Female circumcision is recommended.'}}{{Quote|Ibn-al-jallab (died 988, Malikite)|'Circumcision is Sunnah for men and women.'}}
''<nowiki>https://quranx.com/Hadith/Muslim/USC-MSA/Book-30/Hadith-5844</nowiki>''


===Hanafi Madhab===
''<nowiki>https://quranx.com/Hadith/Adab/English/Book-53/Hadith-1244</nowiki>''
This school is named after the scholar Abū Ḥanīfa an-Nu‘man ibn Thābit (d. 767) and is school with the largest number of followers among Sunni muslims. Abū Ḥanīfa maintained that FGM is not obligatory but highly recommended.


{{Quote|[https://unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/De-linking%20FGM%20from%20Islam%20final%20report.pdf 'Delinking Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting from Islam'] by Ibrahim Lethome Asmani & Maryam Sheikh Abdi (2008)|The Hanafi view is that it is a sunnah (optional act) for both females and males}}
''<nowiki>https://quranx.com/Hadith/Adab/English/Book-53/Hadith-1250</nowiki>''


The Hanafi school is the school of Islam under which there is the least incidence of FGM. Pakistani Muslims are generally Hanafi, and have, till recently, been the largest muslim diaspora to the West. Pakistanis are also frequently English-speaking. Both of which facts increase the prevalence in the West of the narrative that FGM is nothing to do with Islam. With increasing immigration to the West from Shafi’i countries (Somalia in particular) this narrative is harder to maintain since (see below) FGM is obligatory under Shafi’i Islam.
<nowiki>*</nowiki> * *


'Circumcision is sunnah and fitrah. For women, circumcision is makrumah. If the inhabitants of a country reach a unanimous decision to abandon circumcision, the Imam has to wage war against them as it is one of the rituals and a specificity of Islam.'
Narrated Said bin Jubair: Ibn 'Abbas was asked, "How old were you when the Prophet (ﷺ) died?" He replied. "At that time I had been circumcised." At that time, people did not circumcise the boys till they attained the age of puberty. Sa'id bin Jubair said, "Ibn 'Abbas said, 'When the Prophet died, I had already been circumcised. "


{{Quote-text|Al-Musuli (died 1284, hanafite)|'Circumcision is sunnah and fitrah. For women, circumcision is makrumah. If the inhabitants of a country reach a unanimous decision to abandon circumcision, the Imam has to wage war against them as it is one of the rituals and a specificity of Islam.'}}
<nowiki>https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/In-Book/Book-79/Hadith-71</nowiki>


===Shafi'i Madhab===
<nowiki>https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/DarusSalam/Hadith-6300</nowiki>
The Shafi’i school was founded by the Arab scholar Al-Shafi‘i in the early 9th century. The Shafi’i school rejects two interpretative heuristics that are accepted by other major schools of Islam: Istihsan (juristic preference) and Istislah (public interest), heuristics by which compassion and welfare can be integrated into Islamic law-making. Female genital mutilation (FGM) is obligatory in the Shafi'i madhab.<ref name=":0">[https://www.answering-islam.org/Sharia/fem_circumcision.html Section on FGM in the standard manual of Shafi'i law]</ref> Infibulation, the most extreme form of FGM practiced under Islam, is almost entirely attributable to Shafi'i Muslims.


''“Shafi’i view it as wajib (obligatory) for both females and males”'' Delinking Female Genital Mutilati
<nowiki>*</nowiki> * *


{{Quote|[https://unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/De-linking%20FGM%20from%20Islam%20final%20report.pdf 'Delinking Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting from Islam'] by Ibrahim Lethome Asmani & Maryam Sheikh Abdi (2008)|'Shafi’i view it as wajib (obligatory) for both females and males'}}
''Malik related to me that the generally agreed on way of doing things amongst the community about an accident is that there is no blood-money until the victim is better. If a man's bone, either a hand, or a foot, or another part of his body, is broken accidentally and it heals and becomes sound and returns to its form, there is no blood-money for it. If the limb is impaired or there is a scar on it, there is blood-money for it according to the extent that it is impaired. Malik said, "If that part of the body has a specific blood-money mentioned by the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, it is according to what the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, specified. If it is part of what does not have a specific blood-money for it mentioned by the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and if there is no previous sunna about it or specific blood-money, one uses ijtihad about it." Malik said, "There is no blood-money for an accidental bodily injury when the wound heals and returns to its form. If there is any scar or mark in that, ijtihad is used about it except for the belly-wound. There is a third of the blood-money of a life for it. " Malik said, "There is no blood-money for the wound which splinters a bone in the body, and it is like the wound to the body which lays bare the bone." Malik said, "The generally agreed on way of doing things in our community is that when the doctor performs a circumcision and cuts off the glans, he must pay the full blood-money. That is because it is an accident which the tribe is responsible for, and the full blood money is payable for all that in which a doctor errs or exceeds, when it is not intentional."''


'Reliance of the Traveller' by by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri (1302–1367) is the Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law according to Shafi'i School. {{Quote|''Reliance of the Traveler'' [''Umdat al-Salik''], Section e4.3 on Circumcision|'''Obligatory (on every male and female) is circumcision.''' (And it is the cutting-off of the skin [''qat' al-jaldah''] on the glans of the male member and, '''as for the circumcision of the female, that is the cutting-off of the clitoris')}}'''Nuh Ha Mim Keller's 1991 translation of Reliance of the Traveller is bowdlerised to make its content more acceptable to Western eyes and translates the word 'bazr' ( بَظْرٌ ) as 'clitorial prepuce' instead of simply 'clitoris' (see section [[#Defining Bazr|Defining Bazr)]].'''
''<nowiki>https://quranx.com/Hadith/Malik/USC-MSA/Book-43/Hadith-4</nowiki>''


===Hanbali Madhab===
''* * *''


The Hanbali school is named after the Iraqi scholar Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855). Ahmad ibn Hanbal studied under Al-Shafi‘i (founder of the Shafi’i school) and inherited his deep concerns about the jurists of his time, who were ready to reinterpret the doctrines of the Koran and Hadiths to pander to public opinion and the demands of the rich and powerful. Ibn Hanbal advocated a return to the literal interpretation of Koran and Hadiths. This has made the Hanbali school intensely traditionalist. Today’s ultra-conservative Wahhabi–Salafist movement is an offshoot of this school. The Hanbali school, unlike the Hanafi and Maliki schools, reject ''Istihsan'' (jurist discretion) and ''Urf'' (the customs of muslims) as a sound basis by which to derive Islamic law.
''Yahya related to me from Malik from Yahya ibn Said that Said ibn al-Musayyub said, "Ibrahim, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was the first to give hospitality to the guest and the first person to be circumcised and the first person to trim the moustache and the first person to see grey hair. He said, 'O Lord! What is this?' Allah the Blessed, the Exalted, said, 'It is dignity, Ibrahim.' He said, 'Lord, increase me in dignity!' " Yahya said that he had heard Malik say, "One takes from the moustache until the edge of the lip appears, that is the rim. One does not cut if off completely so that one mutilates oneself."''


{{Quote|[https://unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/De-linking%20FGM%20from%20Islam%20final%20report.pdf 'Delinking Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting from Islam'] by Ibrahim Lethome Asmani & Maryam Sheikh Abdi (2008)|'Hanbali have two opinions: -it is wajib (obligatory) for both males and females – it is wajib (obligatory) for males and makrumah (honourable) for females.'}}{{Quote|Al-Qudamah (died 1223, hanbalite)|'Circumcision is obligatory for men, and noble deed for women and not obligatory according to many scholars. Ahmad said: circumcision for men is more important for men than for women, as the foreskin is pending over the glans, therefore what is behind cannot be cleaned. Female circumcision is also prescribed for women. Abu-Abdallah said that the hadith “If the two circumcised membranes meet, ghusl is necessary” means that female circumcision was practiced. According to the hadith of Umar, a circumciser woman performed circumcision; he told her: leave some of it if you circumcise. It is also reported that the Prophet Muhammad said to the circumciser woman: Cut very slightly and do not exaggerate as it is preferable for the husband and better for the face.'}}{{Quote|Al-Bahuti (died 1641, Hanbalite)|'male and female circumcision are obligatory.'}}{{Quote|Sheikh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah (died 1328, Hanbalite)|'Praise be to Allah. Yes, they should be circumcised, i.e., the top of the piece of skin that looks like a rooster’s comb should be cut. The Messenger of Allah said to the woman who did circumcisions: “Leave something sticking out and do not go to extremes in cutting. That makes her face look brighter and is more pleasing to her husband.” That is because the purpose of circumcising a man is to make him clean from the impurity that may collect beneath the foreskin. But the purpose of circumcising women is to regulate their desire, because if a woman is not circumcised her desire will be strong. Hence the words “O son of an uncircumcised woman” are used as an insult, because the uncircumcised woman has stronger desire. Hence immoral actions are more common among the women of the Tatars and the Franks, that are not found among the Muslim women. If the circumcision is too severe, the desire is weakened altogether, which is unpleasing for men; but if it is cut without going to extremes in that, the purpose will be achieved, which is moderating desire. And Allah knows best.'}}{{Quote|Ibn Qayyim (died 1350, Hanbalite)|'Khitaan is a noun describing the action of the circumciser (khaatin). It is also used to describe the site of the circumcision, as in the hadith, “When the two circumcised parts (al-khitaanaan) meet, ghusl become obligatory.” In the case of a female the word used is khafad. In the male it is also called i’dhaar. The one who is uncircumcised is called aghlaf or aqlaf.'}}{{Quote|Ibn Taymiyya (1263 - 1328), Hanbalite)|'[FGM's] purpose is to reduce the woman's desire; if she is uncircumcised, she becomes lustful and tends to long more for men.'}}
''<nowiki>https://quranx.com/Hadith/Malik/USC-MSA/Book-49/Hadith-4</nowiki>''


===Shia Islam===
''* * *''
The attitudes of Shia Islam towards FGM are as not clear-cut as with the schools of Sunni Islam. It is known that FGM is practised by Zaydis in Yemen, Ibadis in Oman and at least by parts of the Ismailis (the Dawoodi Bohras in particular) in India. A survey by WADI conducted in the region of Kirkuk in Iraq found that 23% of Shia girls and women had undergone FGM<ref>[https://mena.hivos.org/news/female-genital-mutilation-in-iraq Female Genital Mutilation in Iraq (April 13, 2012)]</ref>.


====Jafari====
''Narrated Ammar b. Yasir: The Apostle of Allaah ( sal Allaahu alayhi wa sallam ) said : The rinsing of mouth and snuffing up water in the nose are acts that bear the characteristics of fitrah (nature). He then narrated a similar tradition (as reported by Aishah), but he did not mention the words "letting the beard grow". He added the words "circumcision" and "sprinkling water on the private part of the body". He did not mention the words "cleansing oneself after easing". Abu Dawud said : A similar tradition has been reported on the authority of Ibn 'Abbas. He mentioned only five sunnahs all relating to the head, one of them being parting of the hair; it did not include wearing the beard. Abu Dawud said: The tradition as reported by Hammad has also been transmitted by Talq b. Habib, Mujahid, and Bakr b. 'Abd Allaah b. al-Muzani as their own statement ( not as a tradition from the Prophet, sal Allaahu alayhi wa sallam ).They did not mention the words "letting the beard grow". The version transmitted by Muhammad b. Abd Allaah b. Abi Maryam, Abu Salamah, and Abu Hurairah from the Prophet ( sal Allaahu alayhi wa sallam ) mentions the words "letting the beard grow". A similar tradition has been reported by Ibrahim al-Nakha'i. He mentioned the words "wearing the beard and circumcision."''
{{Quote|[https://courtingthelaw.com/2016/04/28/commentary/islam-and-female-genital-mutilation-fgm/ Islam And Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)]|'Ayatollah Khamenei, the leading scholar among contemporary jurists of Iran, says that FGM is permissible but not obligatory for women. He also states that if the husband wants his wife to be circumcised then it might be carried out if it isn’t harmful for her.'}}<br />{{Quote|[https://courtingthelaw.com/2016/04/28/commentary/islam-and-female-genital-mutilation-fgm/ Islam And Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)]|'Ayatullah ali al hussaini ali Sistani form Iraq said in his fatwa in 2010 that FGM is not haram (prohibited). Later in 2014 he revised his fatwa and said that FGM is harmful for the female victims and it isn’t permissible or part of any Islamic injunction.'}}{{Quote|Al-Amili (died 1559, shiite)|'Boys must be circumcised when they become adult…. and it is preferable that women be circumcised even if they are adult.'}}{{Quote|Al-Tusi (died 1067, shiite)|'The circumcision of female slaves, if performed, is great honor and precious merit. If not, nothing bad in it.'}}


====Ismaili====
''<nowiki>https://quranx.com/Hadith/AbuDawud/Hasan/Hadith-53</nowiki>''
FGM appears to be endemic to the Dawoodi Bohras<ref>[https://scroll.in/article/867572/reminder-to-government-new-study-confirms-widespread-female-genital-cutting-among-bohra-muslims Reminder to government: New study confirms widespread female genital cutting among Bohra Muslims]</ref> – an Ismaili sect found in India, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen and East Africa. Their current spiritual leader has recommended FGM as being necessary for purity and to avoid sin.


In 2017 two doctors and a third woman connected to the Dawoodi Bohra in Detroit, Michigan, were arrested on charges of conducting FGM on two seven-year-old girls in the United States. Their Attorney confirmed that FGM was, for her clients, a religious practice<ref>[https://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/26/health/fgm-indictment-michigan/index.html Prosecutor: 'Brutal' genital mutilation won't be tolerated in US]</ref>:
''* * *''


{{Quote|[https://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/26/health/fgm-indictment-michigan/index.html 'Prosecutor: 'Brutal' genital mutilation won't be tolerated in US' - CNN]|'They have a [right] to practice their religion. And they are Muslims and they’re being under attack for it. I believe that they are being persecuted because of their religious beliefs'}}{{Quote|Al-Nazawi (died 1162, ibadite)|'Circumcision is obligatory for every Muslim…. If somebody refuses to submit to circumcision after being ordered to do, he should be killed if he exaggerates in delaying. Circumcision is not obligatory for women but they are ordered to submit to circumcision in honor of their husbands. Women are not obliged as circumcision for women is makrumah and for men it is sunnah, and some said it is faridah (obligation).'}}
''<nowiki/>'Uthaim b. Kulaib reported from his father (Kuthair) on the authority of his grandfather (Kulaib) that he came to the Prophet (ﷺ):I have embraced Islam. The Prophet (ﷺ) said to him: Remove from yourself the hair that grew during of unbelief, saying "shave them". He further says that another person (other than the grandfather of 'Uthaim) reported to him that the Prophet (ﷺ) said to another person who accompanied him: Remove from yourself the hair that grew during the period of unbelief and get yourself circumcised.''


===Muʿtazila===
''<nowiki>https://quranx.com/Hadith/AbuDawud/Hasan/Hadith-356</nowiki>''
Muʿtazila is a rationalist school of Islamic theology that flourished in the cities of Basra and Baghdad during the 8th to the 10th centuries. The Mu'tazila developed an Islamic type of rationalism, partly influenced by Ancient Greek philosophy.
{{Quote|Al-Jahiz (Muʿtazila, died 868-9)|'A woman with clitoris has more pleasure than a woman without clitoris. The pleasure depends on the quantity which was cut from the clitoris. Muhammad said: “If you cut, cut the slightest part and do not exaggerate because it makes the face more beautiful and it is more pleasant for the husband”. It seems that Muhammad wanted to reduce the concupiscence of the women to moderate it. If concupiscence is reduced, the pleasure is also reduced as well as the love for the husbands. The love of the husband is an impediment against debauchery. Judge Janab Al-Khaskhash contends that he counted in one village the number of the women who were circumcised and those who were not, and he found that the circumcised were chaste and the majority of the debauched were uncircumcised. Indian, Byzantine and Persian women often commit adultery and run after men because their concupiscence towards men is greater. For this reason, India created brothels. This happened because of the massive presence of their clitorises and their hoots.'}}


==Modern Fatwas==
''* * *''
See (link to Fatwas concerning FGM page)


The following is a selection of Fatwas, and extracts from fatwas, from the 20th and 21st Century. Note that many are secondary or even tertiary sources
''Salim said, "Ibn 'Umar, Nu'aym and I were circumcised and they sacrificed a ram on our behalf. I think that we were more happy about it than the other children since a ram had been sacrificed on our behalf."''


====Favourable====
''<nowiki>https://quranx.com/Hadith/Adab/English/Book-53/Hadith-1246</nowiki>''
'''(1939)''' ''“Female circumcision is only desirable, i.e., not compulsory, and it consists of cutting off part of the clitoris. More than that is forbidden in view of the Um Atiyah report: “Circumcise but do not go too far, for thus it is better for appearance and gives more pleasure to the husband”. This is the female circumcision which is desirable in Islam. Other forms such as that known among us as the Pharaonic are mutilations and mutilations are categorically forbidden.”'' The Mufti of Sudan – cited in ‘[https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1481084933/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Male and female circumcision: Religious, medical, social and legal debate]‘ by Sami A. Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh


'''(1951)''' ''“Female circumcision is a part of the emblem of Islam and it is mentioned in the prophetic sunnah.'' [FGM’s bad effects] ''are neither certain nor proven, and therefore one cannot base himself on them to reject the circumcision in which the wise Legislator saw a wisdom”'' Sheikh Nassar  – cited in ‘[https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1481084933/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Male and female circumcision: Religious, medical, social and legal debate]‘ by Sami A. Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh
''* * *''


'''(1951)'''''“ When it is proven by the precise research, and not by a temporary opinion given out to satisfy a particular tendency or to conform itself to traditions of given people, that a thing includes a damage for health or a depravity of the morals, it must be forbidden according to the religious law in order tho avoid the damage or the depravity. And until this is proven concerning female circumcision , this practice will continue according to what people are accustomed in the light of the Islamic law and the knowledge of the religious scholars since the time of the prophecy [of Muhammad] until this day, i.e. that the circumcision is a makrumah, and not an obligation or sunnah.”'' Sheikh Shaltut, of Al-Azhar University (1951) – cited in ‘[https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1481084933/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Male and female circumcision: Religious, medical, social and legal debate]‘ by Sami A. Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh
''It is reported that al-Hasan said, "Are you not astonished by this man? (i.e. Malik ibn al-Mundhir) He went to some of the old people of Kaskar who had become Muslim and examined them and then commanded that they be circumcised although it was winter. I heard that some of them died. Greeks and Abyssinians became Muslim with the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and they were not examined at all."''


'''(1981)''' ''“If a region stops, of common agreement, to practice male and female circumcision, the chief of the sate declares war against that region because circumcision is a part of the rituals of Islam and its specificities. This means that male and female circumcisions are obligatory.” ''  sheikh Jad-al-Haq – cited in ‘[https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1481084933/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Male and female circumcision: Religious, medical, social and legal debate]‘ by Sami A. Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh
''<nowiki>https://quranx.com/Hadith/Adab/English/Book-53/Hadith-1251</nowiki>''


'''(1985)''' ''“This attack against the female circumcision […] is undertaken by its adepts and its propagators, either because of ignorance or distraction like parrots, or because of bad intentions and hidden motives like foxes and wolves, or because of hostility and hate like collaborators and agents paid by traitors and enemies[…]. Their only worry is to satisfy their instincts and their passions. Their goal is to free themselves of all limits, morals, traditions and customs. They try to reverse our society according to their limping opinions , their black hearts and their sly mind, to make a society base on corruption, wantonness, atheism, anarchy and immorality”'' a professor of the  faculty of Muslim theology in Mansurah, Egypt  – cited in ‘[https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1481084933/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Male and female circumcision: Religious, medical, social and legal debate]‘ by Sami A. Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh
''* * *''


'''(1986)''' ''"Thus it is clear that female circumcision is prescribed in Islam, and that it is one of the Sunnahs of the fitrah and it has a good effect of moderating the individual’s behaviour. As for the opinions of doctors who say that female circumcision is harmful, these are individual opinions which are not derived from any agreed scientific basis, and they do not form an established scientific opinion. ..."'' [https://tteonb.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/fgm-female-genital-mutilation-islam/ Fatwa of Dar al-Ifta’ al-Misriyyah]
''Ibn Shihab said, "When a man became Muslim, he was ordered to have himself circumcised, even if he was old."''


'''(2000)''' ''“Those who hate Islam and its rituals launched a ferocious campaign against female circumcision. This campaign is fed by Christian spite, sustained by the crusaders’ mass media and financed mainly by the American dollar […]. Even worse is when some Muslim countries promulgate laws forbidding physicians and circumcisers to perform the female circumcision and applying sanctions against those who violate these laws […]. By so doing, these States forbid what God permits. And that is where the danger resides […]. However, one knows that, according to the Muslim religion, the interdiction or the permission belongs to God […] and to no one else be he governed or governor, man or angel.”''  a Saudi sheikh  – reported in in ‘[https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1481084933/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Male and female circumcision: Religious, medical, social and legal debate]‘ by Sami A. Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh
''<nowiki>https://quranx.com/Hadith/Adab/English/Book-53/Hadith-1252</nowiki>''


'''(2002)''' ''“Ibn Quddamah said in al-Mughni: As for circumcision, it is obligatory for men and it is good in the case of woman, but it is not obligatory for them.”'' [https://islamqa.info/en/9412 Circumcision: how it is done and the rulings on it], Islamqa
''* * *''


'''(2005)''' “M''edical research'' […] ''does not show that the Sunnah circumcision – cutting only the outer part of the clitoris – has caused any medical complications'' […] ''Islam condones the Sunnah circumcision; it is acceptable. What’s forbidden in Islam is the pharaonic circumcision'' [...] ''Islamic scholars believe that female circumcision is different from male circumcision. They have a strong view that female circumcision is allowed, and that there is no evidence from Islamic sources prohibiting female circumcision, unless it is pharaonic.”'' [http://www.irinnews.org/q-and/2005/03/08/irin-interview-sheikh-omer-muslim-religious-leader IRIN interview with Sheikh Omer, a muslim religious leader, Ethiopia]
''11 hadith over and above those shared with FGM – notably the fitrah is five things and when two parts touch''


'''(2007)''' ''“''[A]''s far as Islam is concerned “we do observe circumcision not mutilation”'' [http://wow.gm/africa/gambia/article/2007/6/7/imam-fatty-rebuts-fgm-claim Gambian imam: Prophet Muhammad spoke well of FGM]
===Was Mohammed Circumcised?===
There is no indication in the above Hadith that Mohammed was himself circumcised. Mohammed’s parents were ‘polytheists’ and as the ‘Heraclius’ Hadith (quoted above) makes clear ‘''except the Jews nobody practice''[d] ''circumcision’'' in the middle East and Arabia.  


'''(2008) “'''''The'' [Moslem] ''Brotherhood'' […] ''opposes banning'' [FGM] ''because it is a tradition that should remain an option for medical reasons and “beautification” purposes.”'' [https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2008/0724/p05s01-wome.html Egypt’s child protection law sparks controversy] the Christian Science Monitor
Or at least not until Mohammed imposed circumcision on his followers. At the age of forty, after his vision in a cave, his first ‘revelation’, Mohammed started developing a religion based on Jewish Monotheism. If Mohammed were circumcised, it is therefore likely that it would have been some time after the age of forty and would have been recorded either in his Koran or reported in the Hadith.  


'''(2009)''' ''“''[The Hadiths] ''require'' […] ''every woman be circumcised, failing which she will be impure and not even able to handle food. Why, moreover, wish to forbid female circumcision in a country made up of 90% Moslems?”'' Abou Ly (l’Association des imams et oulémas du Sénégal), quoted and translated from “[https://pointdebasculecanada.ca/quand-les-savants-musulmans-justifient-les-mutilations-genitales-feminines/ Quand les «savants musulmans» justifient les mutilations génitales féminines]”
In order to square this circle, some Muslim traditions declare that Muhammad was born without a foreskin. And indeed, some boys are born without a foreskin – an extremely rare condition (1:10,000 according to this source) known as aposthia. However, there exists no evidence that this was the case with Mohammed, and to assume otherwise is to engage in reverse-reasoning born out of wishful-thinking in which an ''improbability'' is elevated into a ''certainty.''
[[File:Fgmflyer-mozlem-brotherhood.jpg|thumb|Muslim Brotherhood flyer promoting FGM (amongst other medical services)]]
'''(2012)''' “''The second strategy of the'' [Moslem Brotherhood] ''to contest the undesirability of FGM is to present it as a medical operation or procedure. By doing so, they encourage people to go to doctors – rather than midwives – who will perform the “operation” under anaesthesia and in accordance with proper surgical procedures'' […] ''Some people talk about taking their daughters to the doctor to check whether “they need it or not”, as if there is a physiological condition that would justify mutilating a woman’s reproductive organs'' […] ''Some doctors believe that not circumcising females leads to sexual arousal and that this could lead to the committing unlawful acts. So circumcision is a duty for the protection of the honour of the believing woman and for the preservation of her chastity and purit''y […] ''The third strategy deployed by the Brothers to promote FGM is to push for its decriminalization, under the premise that it is a matter that should be left to the personal choice of the girls’ guardians'' […] ''“the decision is up to the guardian and the doctor who decides on the extent to which the girl needs this operation”"'' [https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/mutilating-bodies-muslim-brotherhoods-gift-to-egyptian-women/ Mutilating bodies: the Muslim Brotherhood’s gift to Egyptian women]


'''(2013)''' ''“The Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) is in favour of female circumcision (and men) that, although it can not be considered mandatory, it is still “morally recommended.” Kiai Hajj Amin Ma’ruf'' [the head of the council]'', pointed out that it is an “advisable practise on moral grounds”, at the same time, he rejects any attempt to declare this practice illegal or contrary to the principles. It comes under the sphere of “human rights,” said the Islamist leader, and is “guaranteed by the Constitution.””'' [http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Indonesian-Ulema-in-favour-of-female-circumcision:-a-human-right-26948.html Indonesian Ulema in favour of female circumcision: a “human right”]
One should also keep in mind that Mohammed had a tendency to grant himself exceptions from rules he imposed on others. When Mohammed’s god sent him a ‘revelation’ justifying his preferential treatment of certain wives over others, and also granting him permission to take ''any'' woman who offered herself to him, Aisha, his child-bride and his most perceptive, critical and candid follower, remarked sardonically:


'''(2014)''' “''In the Maldives'' […circumcision] ''is the ‘symbol that differentiates Muslims from non-Muslims'' [...] ''All four schools of Sunni jurisprudence however regard it as either ‘obligatory’ or ‘preferable'' [...FGM] ''is one of the five things that are part of ''fitrah'', or nature, says the fatwa by Dr. Mohamed Iyaz Abdul Latheef, Vice President of the Fiqh Academy of the Maldives'' [...] ''the fatwa points to the increasing influence of Saudi Arabia. The cleric uses the Saudi Arabian Fatwa Committee’s concern over the decline of female circumcision in Muslim countries as a stamp of approval for the practice for all Muslims” cited in'' [https://stopfgmmiddleeast.wordpress.com/2014/03/14/maldives-cleric-calls-for-fgm-on-islamic-grounds/ Cleric calls for FGM on Islamic grounds] – MALDIVES
''“I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires.”Al-Bukhari 65:4788''


'''(2014)'''''“For protecting our Islamic nation in Iraq and Syria, our land, and our people, we need to look after our women and their behavior while preventing them from the dreadful modern life they are surrounded with.“'' ISIS fatwa – reported: [http://www.stopfgmmideast.org/fgm-in-iraq-the-hoax-of-a-hoax/#more-1307 FGM in Iraq: The hoax of a hoax?]
Many examples exist of Mohammed granting himself ‘prophetic privilege’, and it would not be out of character for Mohammed to exempt himself from a painful procedure, which would put his sex-life on hold for many months, and reduce the sensitivity of his penis for ever afterwards.


'''(2016)''' “''An Islamic cleric from Russia’s North Caucasus has called for all Russian women to undergo female genital mutilation'' […] ''Ismail Berdiev, a member of the Presidential Council for Cooperation with Religious Communities, said that FGM was needed to combat “sexual immorality'' […] ''All women must be cut, so that there will be no depravity on Earth.”'' [https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2016/08/17/russian-muslim-leader-calls-for-genital-mutilation-for-all-women-a55015 Russian Muslim Cleric Calls for Genital Mutilation of All Women],
=== Did Mohammed have his sons circumcised? ===


'''(2018)''' “''On Feb. 6, Somaliland announced a new fatwa, or religious edict, banning two of the three types of female cutting'' […] ''According to the organizations, the ruling made a certain type of FGM/C “mandatory” for every girl in Somaliland and at the same time banning the most extreme forms.”'' [http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-02/25/c_136997419.htm Aid agencies decry decision to encourage FGM in Somaliland]
==Fatwas==
<br />“let's note that proponents of female circumcision also resort to the argument of the perfection of God's creation. So Majdi Fathi Al-Sayyid writes:


'''(2018)''' ''“''[The Islamic Central Council of Switzerland’s] ''Secretary-General Ferah Uluca said that while the paper justifies the practice, it does not call on Muslims to perform it as a duty. Uluca said it is up to each parent to decide”'' [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/02/24/swiss-islamic-council-justifies-female-genital-mutilation/ Islamic Central Council of Switzerland justifies female genital mutilation]
“The attachment to the specificities of Islam, of which circumcision , makes appear the beautiful picture according to which God created the human being and of which he says: “He designed you and perfected your design” (64:3). “We created man in the best design' (95:4). so the man apperas in a apicture to which no other picture is superior. To quit or to disregard these natural traditions constitutes a distortion of this divine creature”(Ibn-Asakir (d. 1176))


'''(2018)''' “''Circumcision is prescribed for both males and females. The correct view is that'' […] ''circumcision of women is mustahabb'' [‘virtuous‘] ''but not obligatory'' […] ''Female circumcision has not been prescribed for no reason, rather there is wisdom behind it and it brings many benefits. Mentioning some of these benefits, Dr. Haamid al-Ghawaabi says'' […]''”'' [https://islamqa.info/en/45528 Medical benefits of female circumcision] – islamqa
It means for this author that the human being acquires “the best design” through the performance of male and female circumcision and not by abandoning these two practices. [abu sahlieh p144]


'''(2018)''' “''Circumcision is not an inherited custom as some people claim, rather it is prescribed in Islam and the scholars are unanimously agreed that it is prescribed. Not a single Muslim scholar – as far as we know – has said that circumcision is not prescribed. Their evidence is to be found in the saheeh ahaadeeth of the Prophet, which prove that it is prescribed'' [...] ''With regard to the criticism of circumcision by some doctors, and their claim that it is harmful both physically and psychologically, This criticism of theirs is not valid. It is sufficient for us Muslims that something be proven to be from the Prophet'' [...]'', then we will follow it, and we are certain that it is beneficial and not harmful. If it were harmful, Allaah and His Messenger'' [...] ''would not have prescribed it for us'' [...] ''As for the opinions of doctors who say that female circumcision is harmful, these are individual opinions which are not derived from any agreed scientific basis, and they do not form an established scientific opinion […] medical theories about disease and the way to treat it are not fixed, rather they change with time and with ongoing research. So it is not correct to rely on them when criticizing circumcision which the Wise and All-Knowing Lawgiver has decreed in His wisdom for mankind. Experience has taught us that the wisdom behind some rulings and Sunnahs may be hidden from us. May Allaah help us all to follow the right path.”."'' [https://islamqa.info/en/60314 Circumcision of girls and some doctors’ criticism thereof] – islamqa
==Forced Circumcision==


('''2018)''' ''“''[Dr Ali Selim, a spokesman for the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland in Clonskeagh], ''who is also a lecturer at Trinity College in Dublin'' […] ''argued that female circumcision was unfairly framed as a “dark-skin practice” and “barbaric,” insinuating that criticism is racist or prejudiced.”'' [https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/02/11/irish-muslim-leader-backs-female-genital-mutilation/ Irish Muslim Leader Backs Female Genital Mutilation]


'''(date not known)''' ''“I personally support'' [FGM] ''under the current circumstances in the modern world. Anyone who thinks that circumcision is the best way to protect his daughters should do it'' [...] ''The moderate opinion is in favor of practicing circumcision to reduce temptation.”'' Yusuf al-Qaradawi (born 1926) cited in ‘Modern Fatwas’ (1987)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_circumcision#cite_ref-41


'''(date not specified, but the citation from modern film footage)''' ''“I don’t know why a German, British or American entity (thinks it can) come to us to decide for us the circumcision of our daughters! Why should they decide on matters of our girls and women? We base our religion on Allah’s book and the sayings of our beloved prophet and our scholars'' [...] ''Look at any of the books of fiqh from our imams, respected leaders, and scholars–ask them. You will find that our scholars have said that circumcision of women–there are some who say that it is obligatory while others say that it is commendable'' [...] ''this does not mean that I am subjecting the religion to inspection from a doctor. No, my brothers, this does not mean that I subject evidence from the shari'a to review from a doctor!””'' Muhammad Hassan Female Circumcision - <nowiki>https://youtu.be/4gloOIDTrkA</nowiki>


'''(date not specified)''' ''"The calls which urge the banning of female circumcision are call [sic] that go against Islam, because there is no clear text in the Qur’aan or Sunnah and there is no opinion of the fuqaha’ that says that female circumcision is haraam. Female circumcision is either obligatory or recommended'' [...] ''The words of the doctors and others are not definitive. Scientific discoveries are still opening doors every day which change our old perceptions."'' [https://tteonb.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/fgm-female-genital-mutilation-islam/ Fatwa of Shaykh ‘Atiyah Saqar – the former head of the Fatwa Committee in al-Azhar]
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<p style="padding-left:30px;"><em>A US surgeon from California spent 2 weeks in Bosnia-Herzegovina (including time at Kosevo hospital in Sarajevo) in late August and early September performing remedial urological surgery.The doctor reportedly found that Muslim and Mujahedin irregular troops -- some from Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia -- had routinely performed crude, disfiguring, nonmedical circumcisions on Bosnian Serb soldiers, and he treated one 18-year-old Bosnian Serb soldier who was so brutally circumcised that eventually the entire organ required amputation.<br></em><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110622061202/http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/documents/sdrpt4b.htm">Torture of Prisoners, Fourth Report on War Crimes in the Fomer Yugoslavia: Part II</a></p>
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'''(date not specified)''' ''“Some (e.g. the late Rector of Al-Azhar University, Sheikh Gad Al-Haque) argued that since'' [Mohammed] ''did not ban female circumcision, it falls within the category of the permissble. As such, there is no ground for a total ban on it.”'' [http://www.jannah.org/genderequity/equityappendix.html IS FEMALE CIRCUMCISION REQUIRED]
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====Critical====
<p style="padding-left:30px;"><em>Circumcision has been forced on hundreds of Christians, including children and pregnant women, in a campaign by extremists to spread Islam through the war-ravaged Maluku islands.<br></em><a href="http://www.cirp.org/news/morningherald01-27-01/">Terror attacks in the name of religion, Sydney Morning Herald (2001)</a></p>
The following are all fatwas that are critical, or ''appear'' critical, of FGM. Each engages in some form or other of error, obfuscation or deception in order to de-link FGM from Islam. Some of the most common errors, obfuscations and deception are detailed in the section [[#arguments|Arguments de-linking FGM from Islam]].
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==FGM before Islam==
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<p style="padding-left:30px;"><em>Non-Muslims in these camps, especially children, have been subject to religious indoctrination, circumcision and "Arabization" of their names, and eventual forced conversion to Islam</em> [...] <em>Some boys in these camps or in juvenile houses have reportedly undergone forced circumcision<br></em><a href="http://archive.today/ZuAr6">Sudan: Reports of Catholic residents of Khartoum or elsewhere in Sudan being forcefully converted to Islam (2001)</a></p>


===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===
<a "></a></p>
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.
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'''There are reports''' that some Egyptian mummies show signs of FGC. However this appears to be disputed.
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{{Quote|[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,”}}
<p style="padding-left:30px;"><em>The Justice and Peace Commission of Lahor has spoken out against cases of forced conversions: "Young non-Muslim men have been forced to convert and circumcised against their will,"<br></em><a href="http://archive.today/2jin">Christian minorities in Pakistan: little freedom and rising Islamic pressure (2004)</a></p>
[[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||“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. I may refer to FGM, or some method of permanently sterilizing women.
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{{Quote|1=[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.'}}
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'''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.
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{{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.'}}
<p style="padding-left:30px;"><em>The Yezidi religious minority has suffered similar but perhaps even more severe forms of oppression than the Christian communities. Despised by Muslims as “devil-worshippers” and not protected by any form of official recognition, they constituted the most vulnerable community. Adult men were forcibly circumcised<br></em><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110605073043/http://www.let.uu.nl/~Martin.vanBruinessen/personal/publications/Violence.htm#_ftn5">The nature and uses of violence in the Kurdish conflict</a></p>
'''Strabo (64 or 63 BC – c. AD 24)''', a Turkish-born Greek geographer, observed the practice whilst travelling up the Nile.
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{{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>[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.
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<p style="padding-left:30px;"><em>In the city of Falluja, one of the most ancient seats of Mandaeism in the country, the thirty-five families who composed the community were ordered at gunpoint to adopt Islam shortly after the fall of the Saddam regime. The men were forcibly circumcised and the women were married off to Muslim men. Those who resisted were summarily executed.<br></em><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110623041759/http://www.arabwashingtonian.org/english/article.php?issue=4&articleID=71">The Rape of Basra: Cleansing the Iraqi Mandaeans</a></p>


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.
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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'}}
==The sociology of FGM==
 
===The origins of FGM===
The previous section shows that FGM existed before Islam. The fact that FGM can exist without it being justified by religious doctrine suggests that its causes may in part be social.
 
Much of what follows is based on the work of Gerry Mackie, a political scientist who has investigated the social origins of FGM, using comparative-historical sociology and game theory.  Mackie identifies 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).
 
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 needsare 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.[[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]]
 
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===
A culture's kinship system has far reaching consequences - determining laws, beliefs and institutions that, at first sight, can appear only distantly related. From the the previous section, it might be remarked that 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 and 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''.
 
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, reproductive and home-making capacities) and value as a status symbol (the more wives 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 - young men direct their sexual frustration towards those closer to home: the girls and women of their community. This makes for sexually violent societies. And because polygyny turns marriageable females into scarce and valued commodity, the anxiety of families and husbands with regard to the chastity and purity of their females is amplified and becomes neurotic.
 
Because of the supposed ‘perfection’ of Islam, Muslims are unable 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 [[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. Extreme polygyny is 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>'[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]
 
<br /></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.
 
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.
 
====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 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====
[[Child Marriage in Islamic Law|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 thigns 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.
<br />{{Quote|New York Times (2004) - cited in 'Marriage and Civilization' by William Tucker|'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.'}}
 
====Violence against girls and women====
[[Wife Beating in Islamic Law|Islamic law permits wife beating.]]
 
Social scientists such as Joseph Heinrich et al and William H Tucker 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 Islam) 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). Islam encourages parents, relatives and teachers to treat and discipline children in ways that are considered barbaric and perverted 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, making it an easier act to contemplate.
 
==FGM as Un-Islamic==
 
=== A History of FGM as Un-Islamic ===
{{Quote|[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']|”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 Abd Al-Wahhab Al-Maligi says in the above quote, the idea that FGM might be in any way un-Islamic first arose in past three or four decades. Islam is 1400 years old; the various schools of Islam made their pronouncements on FGM in the centuries immediately following Mohammed’s death; this having been done, Islam appears to have given the practice no more thought till very recently: the earliest fatwa clearly critical of FGM appears to be one from 1984.
{{Quote|[https://books.google.fr/books?id&#61;qof6J4n1860C&pg&#61;PA54&lpg&#61;PA54&dq&#61;Sheikh+Abu-Sabib+1984&source&#61;bl&ots&#61;-apLOOha6B&sig&#61;dpINFFLI-N9KO8_FmEET-MDFKbI&hl&#61;en&sa&#61;X&ved&#61;2ahUKEwiXh5Gi5OfcAhVOyoUKHeSgDWUQ6AEwC3oECAgQAQ#v&#61;onepage&q&#61;Sheikh%20Abu-Sabib%201984&f&#61;false 'Sexual Mutilations: A Human Tragedy' by the International Symposium On Sexual Mutiliations 1996]|"The most daring and most coherent opinion coming from a religious leader against female circumcision is that of Sheikh Abu-Sabib, a Sudanese. He spoke at the Seminar on Traditional Practices (Dakear, 1984). The sayings of Mohammed about female circumcision are not reliable. They and the Koran do not require anyone to suffer, when science proves the harm done by this mutilation. The Egyptian Mohammed Salim Al-'Awwah holds a similar opinion."}}
There has been a flurry of fatwas concerning FGM in recent decades. This flurry has, I believe, been a response to heightened expectations of the rights of women and children in the non-Islamic world, and a growing awareness and revulsion at the practice of FGM.
[[File:Fgmwordsearches.jpg|alt=NGram for terms: 'FGM', 'Female Genital Mutilation' and 'Female Circumcision'|thumb|NGram for terms: 'FGM', 'Female Genital Mutilation' and 'Female Circumcision']]
An Ngram for the terms ‘fgm’, ‘female genital mutilation’ and ‘female circumcision’ gives the following result:
 
A sharp and steady rise in the more condemnatory term (‘mutilation’ rather than ‘circumcision’) in English-language literature starts in 1989-90. This coincides with the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, which 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.” Islam saw itself reflected in the non-Islamic world’s eyes and felt ashamed at what it saw – leading to, for the first time in Islamic history, to some questioning and criticism of this practice.
 
However, keeping in mind the historical context of its 1400-year complicity in the practice, Islam’s response to FGM is reminiscent of that of a burglar who, after having practiced his trade with impunity for decades, has a sudden access of guilt and repentance on his first appearance before a judge. One suspects his distress is more at being found out than guilt or repentance.
 
As it is, most fatwas that appear to condemn FGM are, at best, worryingly ignorant of the place of FGM in Islamic doctrine, or engage in uncritical thinking, or are, at worst, insincere – designed to be no more than pacifiers of the concerns of the non-Islamic world.
 
===Arguments de-linking FGM from Islam===
{{anchor|arguments}}Over the past 40 or so years, as a consequence of the scrutiny of the international community, and a heightened sensitivity to the rights of women and children, parts of the Islamic world have started to feel embarrassed about Islam's  complicity with FGM. The parts of the Islamic word that feel this embarrassment are (of course) those parts that do not practice FGM.
 
The Hanafi school is the school of Islam under which there is the least incidence of FGM. Pakistani Muslims are generally Hanafi, and have, till recently, been the largest muslim diaspora to the West. Pakistanis are also frequently English-speaking. Both of which facts increase the prevalence in the West of the narrative that ''‘FGM is nothing to do with Islam’''. With increasing immigration to the West from Shafi’i countries (Somalia in particular) this narrative is harder to maintain since (as we shall see below) FGM is obligatory under Shafi’i Islam.
 
====there is no FGM in the Qur'an====
see '''[[#quran|FGM in the Qur'an]]'''
 
most of islam is not in the Qur'an
 
====FGM existed before Islam====
The underlying assumption of this argument is that ''if a practice existed before Islam then it can not be Islamic''. Most of what constitutes Islam is not original to Islam. Muhammad took what was a secular practice and sacralised it. 
 
====FGM is an African practice====
 
====Christians practice FGM too====
The underlying assumption of this argument is that ''if Christians engage in a practice then it can not be Islamic.'' 
 
fgm in europe (show map)
 
==== lack of consensus of scholars ====
 
====not all muslims practice FGM====
The underlying assumption of this argument is that ''only those practices which all Muslims engage in can be Islamic.''
 
First, as is clear from above the baseline stance that Islam takes on FGM is that it can't be forbiden. For a practice such as FGM this is not the correct base line - a parallel would be a religion that allows murder or rape.
 
Second, there are many practices in Islam that are optional.
 
====the FGM Hadith are weak====
bukhjari and muslim
 
weak hadith can be used if supported by stronger hadith
 
====Hadith don't matter====
none of the 5 pillars of Islam explained in Qur'an, but need hadith
 
when Qur'an 9:5 mentioned apologists are keen to turn to hadith to justify it or excuse it.
 
====mutilation is forbidden by Qur'an====
===='sunnah circumcision'====
mention reliance of the traveller mistranslation
 
====equivocation====
{{anchor|equivocation}}Since the 1990s Islamic scholars, clerics and other sources have issued fatwas and statements that appear to criticise, condemn and even forbid FGM. However, an alert reading of these reveals that they virtually all engage in some form of equivocation ('deliberate evasiveness in wording : the use of ambiguous or equivocal language') in order to appear to be more critical of FGM than they are. 
 
Probably the most cited instance of this 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. 
 
{{Quote|[https://www.academia.edu/6142789/Egypts_Villages_Fight_Female_Genital_Mutilation_WFS_NEWS Dr Ahmed Talib, Dean of the Faculty of Sharia at Al-Azhar University]|“All practices of female circumcision and mutilation are crimes and have no relationship with Islam. Whether it involves the removal of the skin or the cutting of the flesh of the female genital organs… it is not an obligation in Islam.”}}After gaining our trust by forthrightly condemning FGM it could almost pass unnoticed that the implication of his final phrase (‘''it is not an obligation in Islam’'') is that, under Islam, FGM’s legitimacy may stop only just short of ‘obligatory’ - which, of course, could include ''‘highly recommended’''. There is a world of difference between something ''not being obligatory'' and something being ''forbidden:'' the fact something is not ‘obligatory’ in no way implies that it is undesirable, unacceptable or forbidden: owning a dog is not ‘obligatory’ – but that in no way implies that owning a dog is frowned on, discouraged or forbidden; giving to charity is valued, respected and encouraged but, like FGM in Islam, it is not ‘obligatory’. A fatwa may be adorned with much criticism and condemnation of FGM, but if all that criticism amounts to nothing more than a statement that ''‘FGM is not obligatory under Islam’'' – it merely reveals that the author of the fatwa was unable to state that ''‘FGM is forbidden under Islam’''.
 
=== The Question of Responsibility ===
It is wrong to assume that, because an authority or ideology does not require a particular practice, it is therefore not morally responsible for any incidence of that practice that occurs under its aegis: a mother does not need to compel her toddler to play with a loaded gun for her to be considered 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 playing with the loaded gun.
 
''The question that matters is not whether FGM is Islamic or not, but to what extent Islam is responsible for the existence of FGM in the world today, and for much of the past 1400 years.''
 
When we ask whether FGM is Islamic or not we are in effect asking whether FGM accords with Islam's best conception of itself (as encoded in both doctrine and the intended outcomes of doctrine). This covers only a small part of what it means to be 'responsible'. A moral entity (which can include an ideology and religion) is not only responsible for the intended consequeces of its actions (i.e. those that are in accordance with its best conception of itself) but all its acts and all the consequences of its doctrine and its implementation – including those that are unintended, those which clash with the best conception the ideology has of itself, and which many of its followers are ashamed of, or wish to repudiate.
 
Islam appears to be responsible for the sacralisation of FGM, its spread, and the hindering of its eradication – whether FGM is 'Islamic' or not has no bearing on this responsibility.
 
==See Also==
 
*[[Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars:Female Genital Mutilation]]
 
==References==
<references />

Latest revision as of 16:08, 26 January 2022

circumcision

Intro - the nature of circumcision, statistics, distribution, comparative stats (Muslims, Xtians, Jews, etc)

arabic word for male circumcision

Male Circumcision: truly reliable figures on the extent of circumcision in the world do not exist. In 1996, during the 4th international symposium held in Lausanne, the following figures were distributed: each year, 13,300,000 male children are circumcised in the world. This makes an average of:

1,100,000 childre per month

36,438 per day

1,518 per hour

25 per minute.

Another source indicates that 23% of the male population of the world is cricumcised, which makes a toatl of 650 million. (http://noharmm.org/HGMstats.htm) “

Quran


“Then We revealed to you, [O Muhammad], to follow the religion of Abraham, inclining toward truth; and he was not of those who associate with Allah .” Koran 16:123


There is no explicit reference to Male Genital Mutilation in the Qur'an. However, the Quran 30:30 requires Muslims to 'adhere to the fitrah'.

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.
Quran 30:30

The word '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'.

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.”
Sahih Bukhari 7:72:777; See also Sahih Muslim 2:495

“...the Koran mentions 69 times Abraham's name, who is considered a “good example” to follow (60:4), without ever speaking of circumcision.”

Hadith


This is an inventory of sahih and hasan Hadith which touch exclusively on Male Genital Mutilation ( or 'circumcision').

It should not be taken as comprehensive.

To compile it I used the wild-card search for “circumc*” on the site quranx.com.

This search gave 50 results.

“Abu Hurayrah said: I heard the Prophet say: “The fitrah is five things – or five things are part of the fitrah – circumcision, shaving the pubes, trimming the moustache, cutting the nails and plucking the armpit hairs.”” Bukhari 77:106

***

“[…]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 parts touch each other a bath becomes obligatory.” Sahih Muslim 3:684

***

“Abu al- Malih ibn `Usama’s father relates that the Prophet said: “Circumcision is a law for men and a preservation of honour for women.”” Ahmad Ibn Hanbal 5:75; Abu Dawud, Adab 167

***

There were many Hadith where the matn was essenitally the same. Rather than reproducing each one of these I have quoted a 'representative' Hadith, and listed links to the other versions beneath.

...The sub narrator adds, "Ibn An-Natur was the Governor of llya' (Jerusalem) and Heraclius was the head of the Christians of Sham. Ibn An-Natur narrates that once while Heraclius was visiting ilya' (Jerusalem), he got up in the morning with a sad mood. Some of his priests asked him why he was in that mood? Heraclius was a foreteller and an astrologer. He replied, 'At night when I looked at the stars, I saw that the leader of those who practice circumcision had appeared (become the conqueror). Who are they who practice circumcision?' The people replied, 'Except the Jews nobody practices circumcision, so you should not be afraid of them (Jews). 'Just Issue orders to kill every Jew present in the country.' While they were discussing it, a messenger sent by the king of Ghassan to convey the news of Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) to Heraclius was brought in. Having heard the news, he (Heraclius) ordered the people to go and see whether the messenger of Ghassan was circumcised. The people, after seeing him, told Heraclius that he was circumcised. Heraclius then asked him about the Arabs. The messenger replied, 'Arabs also practice circumcision.' (After hearing that) Heraclius remarked that sovereignty of the 'Arabs had appeared. Heraclius then wrote a letter to his friend in Rome who was as good as Heraclius in knowledge...

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/USC-MSA/Volume-1/Book-1/Hadith-6

* * *

Narrated Ibn `Abbas:The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "You will be gathered (on the Day of Judgment), bare-footed, naked and not circumcised." He then recited:--'As We began the first creation, We, shall repeat it: A Promise We have undertaken: Truly we shall do it.' (21.104) He added, "The first to be dressed on the Day of Resurrection, will be Abraham, and some of my companions will be taken towards the left side (i.e. to the (Hell) Fire), and I will say: 'My companions! My companions!' It will be said: 'They renegade from Islam after you left them.' Then I will say as the Pious slave of Allah (i.e. Jesus) said. 'And I was a witness Over them while I dwelt amongst them. When You took me up You were the Watcher over them, And You are a witness to all things. If You punish them. They are Your slaves And if You forgive them, Verily you, only You are the All-Mighty, the All-Wise." (5.120-121)

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/USC-MSA/Volume-4/Book-55/Hadith-568

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/USC-MSA/Volume-6/Book-60/Hadith-149

* * *

Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "Abraham did his circumcision with an adze at the age of eighty." Narrated Abu Az-Zinad: (as above in Hadith No. 575) With an adze.

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/USC-MSA/Volume-4/Book-55/Hadith-575

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/DarusSalam/Hadith-6298

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Muslim/USC-MSA/Book-30/Hadith-5844

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Adab/English/Book-53/Hadith-1244

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Adab/English/Book-53/Hadith-1250

* * *

Narrated Said bin Jubair: Ibn 'Abbas was asked, "How old were you when the Prophet (ﷺ) died?" He replied. "At that time I had been circumcised." At that time, people did not circumcise the boys till they attained the age of puberty. Sa'id bin Jubair said, "Ibn 'Abbas said, 'When the Prophet died, I had already been circumcised. "

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/In-Book/Book-79/Hadith-71

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/DarusSalam/Hadith-6300

* * *

Malik related to me that the generally agreed on way of doing things amongst the community about an accident is that there is no blood-money until the victim is better. If a man's bone, either a hand, or a foot, or another part of his body, is broken accidentally and it heals and becomes sound and returns to its form, there is no blood-money for it. If the limb is impaired or there is a scar on it, there is blood-money for it according to the extent that it is impaired. Malik said, "If that part of the body has a specific blood-money mentioned by the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, it is according to what the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, specified. If it is part of what does not have a specific blood-money for it mentioned by the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and if there is no previous sunna about it or specific blood-money, one uses ijtihad about it." Malik said, "There is no blood-money for an accidental bodily injury when the wound heals and returns to its form. If there is any scar or mark in that, ijtihad is used about it except for the belly-wound. There is a third of the blood-money of a life for it. " Malik said, "There is no blood-money for the wound which splinters a bone in the body, and it is like the wound to the body which lays bare the bone." Malik said, "The generally agreed on way of doing things in our community is that when the doctor performs a circumcision and cuts off the glans, he must pay the full blood-money. That is because it is an accident which the tribe is responsible for, and the full blood money is payable for all that in which a doctor errs or exceeds, when it is not intentional."

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Malik/USC-MSA/Book-43/Hadith-4

* * *

Yahya related to me from Malik from Yahya ibn Said that Said ibn al-Musayyub said, "Ibrahim, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was the first to give hospitality to the guest and the first person to be circumcised and the first person to trim the moustache and the first person to see grey hair. He said, 'O Lord! What is this?' Allah the Blessed, the Exalted, said, 'It is dignity, Ibrahim.' He said, 'Lord, increase me in dignity!' " Yahya said that he had heard Malik say, "One takes from the moustache until the edge of the lip appears, that is the rim. One does not cut if off completely so that one mutilates oneself."

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Malik/USC-MSA/Book-49/Hadith-4

* * *

Narrated Ammar b. Yasir: The Apostle of Allaah ( sal Allaahu alayhi wa sallam ) said : The rinsing of mouth and snuffing up water in the nose are acts that bear the characteristics of fitrah (nature). He then narrated a similar tradition (as reported by Aishah), but he did not mention the words "letting the beard grow". He added the words "circumcision" and "sprinkling water on the private part of the body". He did not mention the words "cleansing oneself after easing". Abu Dawud said : A similar tradition has been reported on the authority of Ibn 'Abbas. He mentioned only five sunnahs all relating to the head, one of them being parting of the hair; it did not include wearing the beard. Abu Dawud said: The tradition as reported by Hammad has also been transmitted by Talq b. Habib, Mujahid, and Bakr b. 'Abd Allaah b. al-Muzani as their own statement ( not as a tradition from the Prophet, sal Allaahu alayhi wa sallam ).They did not mention the words "letting the beard grow". The version transmitted by Muhammad b. Abd Allaah b. Abi Maryam, Abu Salamah, and Abu Hurairah from the Prophet ( sal Allaahu alayhi wa sallam ) mentions the words "letting the beard grow". A similar tradition has been reported by Ibrahim al-Nakha'i. He mentioned the words "wearing the beard and circumcision."

https://quranx.com/Hadith/AbuDawud/Hasan/Hadith-53

* * *

'Uthaim b. Kulaib reported from his father (Kuthair) on the authority of his grandfather (Kulaib) that he came to the Prophet (ﷺ):I have embraced Islam. The Prophet (ﷺ) said to him: Remove from yourself the hair that grew during of unbelief, saying "shave them". He further says that another person (other than the grandfather of 'Uthaim) reported to him that the Prophet (ﷺ) said to another person who accompanied him: Remove from yourself the hair that grew during the period of unbelief and get yourself circumcised.

https://quranx.com/Hadith/AbuDawud/Hasan/Hadith-356

* * *

Salim said, "Ibn 'Umar, Nu'aym and I were circumcised and they sacrificed a ram on our behalf. I think that we were more happy about it than the other children since a ram had been sacrificed on our behalf."

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Adab/English/Book-53/Hadith-1246

* * *

It is reported that al-Hasan said, "Are you not astonished by this man? (i.e. Malik ibn al-Mundhir) He went to some of the old people of Kaskar who had become Muslim and examined them and then commanded that they be circumcised although it was winter. I heard that some of them died. Greeks and Abyssinians became Muslim with the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and they were not examined at all."

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Adab/English/Book-53/Hadith-1251

* * *

Ibn Shihab said, "When a man became Muslim, he was ordered to have himself circumcised, even if he was old."

https://quranx.com/Hadith/Adab/English/Book-53/Hadith-1252

* * *

11 hadith over and above those shared with FGM – notably the fitrah is five things and when two parts touch

Was Mohammed Circumcised?

There is no indication in the above Hadith that Mohammed was himself circumcised. Mohammed’s parents were ‘polytheists’ and as the ‘Heraclius’ Hadith (quoted above) makes clear ‘except the Jews nobody practice[d] circumcision’ in the middle East and Arabia.

Or at least not until Mohammed imposed circumcision on his followers. At the age of forty, after his vision in a cave, his first ‘revelation’, Mohammed started developing a religion based on Jewish Monotheism. If Mohammed were circumcised, it is therefore likely that it would have been some time after the age of forty and would have been recorded either in his Koran or reported in the Hadith.

In order to square this circle, some Muslim traditions declare that Muhammad was born without a foreskin. And indeed, some boys are born without a foreskin – an extremely rare condition (1:10,000 according to this source) known as aposthia. However, there exists no evidence that this was the case with Mohammed, and to assume otherwise is to engage in reverse-reasoning born out of wishful-thinking in which an improbability is elevated into a certainty.

One should also keep in mind that Mohammed had a tendency to grant himself exceptions from rules he imposed on others. When Mohammed’s god sent him a ‘revelation’ justifying his preferential treatment of certain wives over others, and also granting him permission to take any woman who offered herself to him, Aisha, his child-bride and his most perceptive, critical and candid follower, remarked sardonically:

“I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires.”Al-Bukhari 65:4788

Many examples exist of Mohammed granting himself ‘prophetic privilege’, and it would not be out of character for Mohammed to exempt himself from a painful procedure, which would put his sex-life on hold for many months, and reduce the sensitivity of his penis for ever afterwards.

Did Mohammed have his sons circumcised?

Fatwas


“let's note that proponents of female circumcision also resort to the argument of the perfection of God's creation. So Majdi Fathi Al-Sayyid writes:

“The attachment to the specificities of Islam, of which circumcision , makes appear the beautiful picture according to which God created the human being and of which he says: “He designed you and perfected your design” (64:3). “We created man in the best design' (95:4). so the man apperas in a apicture to which no other picture is superior. To quit or to disregard these natural traditions constitutes a distortion of this divine creature”(Ibn-Asakir (d. 1176))

It means for this author that the human being acquires “the best design” through the performance of male and female circumcision and not by abandoning these two practices. [abu sahlieh p144]

Forced Circumcision

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_circumcision#cite_ref-41


A US surgeon from California spent 2 weeks in Bosnia-Herzegovina (including time at Kosevo hospital in Sarajevo) in late August and early September performing remedial urological surgery.The doctor reportedly found that Muslim and Mujahedin irregular troops -- some from Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia -- had routinely performed crude, disfiguring, nonmedical circumcisions on Bosnian Serb soldiers, and he treated one 18-year-old Bosnian Serb soldier who was so brutally circumcised that eventually the entire organ required amputation.
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110622061202/http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/documents/sdrpt4b.htm">Torture of Prisoners, Fourth Report on War Crimes in the Fomer Yugoslavia: Part II</a>

Circumcision has been forced on hundreds of Christians, including children and pregnant women, in a campaign by extremists to spread Islam through the war-ravaged Maluku islands.
<a href="http://www.cirp.org/news/morningherald01-27-01/">Terror attacks in the name of religion, Sydney Morning Herald (2001)</a>

Non-Muslims in these camps, especially children, have been subject to religious indoctrination, circumcision and "Arabization" of their names, and eventual forced conversion to Islam [...] Some boys in these camps or in juvenile houses have reportedly undergone forced circumcision
<a href="http://archive.today/ZuAr6">Sudan: Reports of Catholic residents of Khartoum or elsewhere in Sudan being forcefully converted to Islam (2001)</a>


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The Justice and Peace Commission of Lahor has spoken out against cases of forced conversions: "Young non-Muslim men have been forced to convert and circumcised against their will,"
<a href="http://archive.today/2jin">Christian minorities in Pakistan: little freedom and rising Islamic pressure (2004)</a>

The Yezidi religious minority has suffered similar but perhaps even more severe forms of oppression than the Christian communities. Despised by Muslims as “devil-worshippers” and not protected by any form of official recognition, they constituted the most vulnerable community. Adult men were forcibly circumcised
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110605073043/http://www.let.uu.nl/~Martin.vanBruinessen/personal/publications/Violence.htm#_ftn5">The nature and uses of violence in the Kurdish conflict</a>

In the city of Falluja, one of the most ancient seats of Mandaeism in the country, the thirty-five families who composed the community were ordered at gunpoint to adopt Islam shortly after the fall of the Saddam regime. The men were forcibly circumcised and the women were married off to Muslim men. Those who resisted were summarily executed.
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110623041759/http://www.arabwashingtonian.org/english/article.php?issue=4&articleID=71">The Rape of Basra: Cleansing the Iraqi Mandaeans</a>


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