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Female Genital Mutilation in Islamic Law

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 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.

FGM is a practice associated with Islam: about 80% of FGM is attributable to Muslims.^[1] Most of the remaining 20% is attributable to non-Muslims living in FGM-practicing Islamic societies (e.g. the Egyptian Copts^[2]), 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.

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. 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) 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.

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.^[3]

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.

FGM in the Hadith

FGM is mentioned (at least) 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

The fitrah is five things, including circumcision

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.

A preservation of honor for women

Do not cut "severely"

Note that the judgement concerning what is severe is relative.

When the circumcised parts touch each other

To 'sit amidst four parts of a woman' is a euphemism for sexual intercourse.

Other Evidence in the Hadith

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

This hadith includes an exchange of insults between Meccan warriors and Muhammad's companions prior to the battle of Uhud.

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

Go and Circumcise Them and Purify Them

FGM in the Qur'an

There is no explicit reference to Female Genital Mutilation in the Qur'an.

However, the Qur'an 30:30 requires Muslims to 'adhere to the fitrah'. The word 'fitrah' appears only this once in the Qur'an, and is left undefined and unexplained.

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.

This hadith uses the Arabic word khitan for 'circumcision'.

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.

Therefore, in the hadith the word 'khitan' can refer to FGM, or to Male Circumcision, or to both.

Thus, according to traditional interpretive methodology, Qur'an 30:30 by requiring one to 'adhere to the fitrah' indirectly, but ineluctably, advocates FGM.

FGM in Islamic law

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 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 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 below).

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:

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.

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.

Maliki Madhab

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“

Hanafi Madhab

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.

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.

Shafi'i Madhab

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.^[4] 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

'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.

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).

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.

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^[5].

Jafari

Ismaili

FGM appears to be endemic to the Dawoodi Bohras^[6] – 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^[7]:

FGM before Islam

Islamic sources

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

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

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

Non-Islamic sources

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

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

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

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

A fragment referring to a fifth-century B.C. history by Xanthos of Lydia says:

Lydia corresponds to Western Asiatic Turkey. It is not entirely clear what is here meant by ‘castration’. It may mean FGM, or it may mean some form of permanently sterilizing women.

There are several classical references from the second century BC geographer Agatharchides of Cnidus, who, writing about tribes living on the west coast of the Red Sea, identified a group 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”. ^[8] Agatharchides of Cnidus is probably referring to an area today comprising by Eritrea, Djibouti and coastal Sudan.

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

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

Another passage from Strabo's Geographica suggests that some time after Moses’ death, the Jews practiced FGM :

The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BC – 50 AD) reports in his ‘Questions on Genesis’^[9]:

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.

Galen in his ‘Introductio sive Medicus’ also notes:

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 to his manual of gynaecology is ‘On an excessively large clitoris’. The actual text of this chapter has not survived. However there exists a translation, probably from the the sixth century AD:

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

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

Paulus of Aegina (Aegina is one of the Saronic islands of Greece), a 7th Century AD urologic surgeon, was something of an expert and gives his version of how to perform the procedure:

The word ‘nympha’ usually refers the labia minora, but here seems to be being also used of the clitoris.

The Causes of FGM

There are two broad categories of causes for FGM: doctrinal causes and social causes. Doctrinal causes operate when people practice FGM because they believe their god or religion requires them to do so (see the sections on FGM in the Hadith, FGM in the Qur'an and FGM in Islamic law). However, as the previous section makes clear, FGM existed long before Islam, which suggests that Doctrine is unlikely to completely explain its existence.

Much of what follows in this section is based on the work of Gerry Mackie, who has conducted insightful work into the social origins of FGM, using comparative-historical sociology and game theory. ^[10]

the function of FGM

Mackie sees FGM as having its roots in polygyny, particularly the kind of extreme polygyny that could exist at the heart of empires. In polygynous societies it is only rich and high-status men who are able to afford to keep multiple wives. However, these high-status polygynous men face a problem guaranteeing the fidelity of their many wives - and the more wives they have the greater that problem becomes. In a monogamous marriage, by comparison, a husband and wife can spend much time together (and thus can monitor each others fidelity), become close to one another, and their sexual and emotional needs and capacity are more-or-less proportional. A polygynous man may have two, four, a hundred or some times even a thousand 'concubines' (note that Islamic law, whilst limiting the number of wives a man can have, places no limit on the number of sex-slaves a man can own), whom he must satisfy emotionally and sexually, keep faithful, and whose desire for motherhood he must also satisfy. If one of his wive's needs are not satisfied, she will be tempted be unfaithful, and this may result in the high-status man rearing a child that is not his own. Which, in terms of genetic evolution, is a disaster for the man.

In order to assure themselves of the chastity and fidelity of their many wives, polygynous men have developed a variety of practices which safeguard and assure a girl or woman's chastity:

• harems - which keep 'concubines' locked away, guarded by eunuchs;
• footbinding (as once practiced by the Chinese) - which keeps wives from being unfaithful by reducing their mobility and independence;
• chaperoning and gender segregation - which hamper and eliminate interactions between the sexes;
• arranged and child marriages - which obviate the dangers that romance and courting poses to a girl's chastity and reputation;
• veiling - which makes girls less interesting and identifiable to males;

FGM is a Chastity Assurance practice. It reduces a girl's capacity for sexual pleasure both physically (through the removal of the clitoris and labia) and mentally (through the effects of trauma). Where a girl has been infibulated her chastity is further guaranteed because her vaginal opening is sealed with a covering of skin, the penetration of which is extremely painful and which leads to severe hemorrhaging that is difficult to conceal.

In polygynous societies, marriage to high status men is highly advantageous, to both potential brides and their families, who will benefit from having a high-status male as a relative. The urge for women to marry into higher strata of society is called hypergyny. It is universal to all societies, but is intensified in polygynous societies. This is partly because in monogamous societies, high-status man become unavailable (as husbands) once married, whereas in polygynous societies a married high-status man remains available.

Girls who aspire to marry high status polygynous men must meet their expectations and standards - a family wishing to marry a daughter to a high status man must persuade him that their daughter is 'pure', chaste and will be faithful to him. They demonstrate this by adopting (or having their daughter adopt) Chastity Assurance practices expected by that man, whether it be FGM or other practices in the above list.

The intensely hypergynous nature of polygynous societies means that the marriage practices of high-status polygynous men cascade down through the lower ranks of society, and are rapidly adopted by all families. Only the daughters of the poorest families, who can not afford to engage in such practices, are spared. These girls and their families are stigmatised as 'impure', contaminating and guaranteed to be unchaste, and will be considered as 'untouchables' and suffer from intense discrimination and persecution. Thus the avoidance of stigma becomes an added incentive for families to conform to the community's Chastity Assurance practices.

A Muslim with four wives and ninety-six sex slaves faces the same fidelity-assurance challenges as a non-Muslim with a hundred wives. And four wives are as likely to be a source of anxiety as four sex-slaves. They are therefore are both equally likely to require wives who are mutilated (though a slave-trader may be more disposed to employing the practice on a captured female than a loving parent on a daughter).

Islamic Doctrine that creates social conditions favourable to FGM

Polygyny and its consequences

As we have seen FGM has its origins in the centers of empires, where rich powerful men could engage in extreme polygyny.

Islam is an empire-building ideology that favours polygyny and, to this extent, reproduces the originating conditions for FGM. Indeed, Islam could be characterised as the codification and sacralisation of polygyny, and of the consequences of polygyny.

Polygyny make for societies 1/ which are tribal, violent and particularly sexual violence - where the safety of girls and women is put at risk 2/ where women are commodified 3/ where a disproportionate value is placed on the 'purity' of girls and women. Indeed antropologists and historians have identified the dichotomy between monogamy and polygyny to be that which seperates two streams of humanity: monogamy leading to democrcay, human rights, scientific social and cultural progress; polygyny maintaining humanity in tribalism, barbarism and the dark ages.

This is because monogamous kinship systems can approach a state of equilibrium where every man and woman can expect to find a spouse. Such a state of equilibrium is impossible in a polygynous system. Females are a commodity with both an inherent value (their beauty, the pleasure they give, their reproductive capacity) and are also a status symbol (the more wives you have the higher your status). This fuels a dynamic where the demand for marriageable females always exceed the supply, and no man can ever have enough wives. This has far-reaching consequences: marriageable females become a scarce and valued asset that needs to be protected and exploited, 'bride-famines' develop amongst poor low-status men, that are alleviated by importing females into the system (baby girls, children or women) through raids on neighbouring tribes, communities and countries, or from further afield by means of the Islamic slave trade.

But polygyny does not consist solely of ‘wives’, but also includes sex slaves. And Islam places no limit on the number of sex slaves a man can own. Ottoman sultans had huge harems: the Sultan Moulay Ismail Ibn Sharif of Morocco (1645 - 1727 ) 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'. Mohammed himself had 15 wives, 11 at the same time, in addition to at least four sex slaves.

Generally polygyny is practiced by men of the social elite. These men monopolise an inequitable share of the community’s women (imagine a desert island with ten men and ten women and what happens if one or two men take three or four wives...). This results in a scarcity of females at the bottom of society, which creates a sexual, affective and marital famine which low-status men have traditionally solved by capturing females from neighbouring tribes, or by engaging in sexual violence towards girls and women of their own community. This explains the observation made by social scientists such as Joseph Heinrich et al and William H Tucker (“Marriage and Civilization: how monogamy made us human”) that polygynous societies are by their very nature belligerent and sexually violent.

At the same time, the elite requires that brides (and potential brides) meet their extreme standards of chastity, purity and fidelity. So, on one hand polygyny puts girls and women at an actual heightened risk of rape, abuse, kidnap, and on the other hand places an excessive value on the 'purity' of girls and women. This places women in a double xxxxx

Islam protect girls and women from this sexual violence with chastity assurance measures. These include gender segregation, veiling, chaperoning, honour culture, arranged marriages, and FGM. All these measures segregate women from young men.

This establishes a positive feedback loop: Islamic polygyny deprives poor young men of sexual or affective hope; this generates desperation and sexual violence; from which Islam protects girls and women by further isolating them.

Dowries (or more precisely ‘Bride-prices’) exacerbate this by mandating that the groom pay his bride in order to marry her. All Islamic marriages must include a Bride-price (mahr) paid by the groom. Islam attributes a very high value to ‘purity’ and virginity in girls and women. One of the consequences of this is that the Islamic bride-price system places a substantial financial value on a girl’s or woman’s chastity. This is exacerbated by the scarcity of women caused by polygyny, which inflates the value of dowries, making marriage un-affordable to low-ranking young men, even if they manage to find a bride.

But if a girl is perceived to be unchaste or impure, or if she’s been a victim of sexual violence, she becomes un-marriageable and loses all her economic value. Leaving her family stuck with a valueless commodity that they must support for the rest of their lives.

Thus this economic aspect introduced by mahr (bride-price) creates a further incentive for parents to engage in chastity assurance practices (such as FGM).

Polygnynous family structures are loveless compared to monogamous ones. Fathers have less involvement with their many wives and even more numerous children (Osama bin laden’s father had 54 children by 22 wives). Tensions and rivalries arise between wives, and between the children of different 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. And cruelty required of FGM is normalised by other practices such as male circumcision, cruel and mutilating public punishments, halal slaughter, and the violent and hateful speech contained in the Koran.

Child Marriage is endemic to polygynous societies – bringing little girls into the marriage market to make up for the scarcity of women. Dowry further incentives child-marriage, as it becomes advantageous for parents to ‘sell-off’ their daughters before adolescence, when her reputation is at greater risk of being spoiled and her losing her economic value. Moreover, if the bride is still a child, the dowry goes not to her but to her father. All this sexualises the perception of little girls, making them vulnerable to the sexual violence endemic to polygynous societies. This drives down the age at which chastity assurance practices such as FGM are initiated.

Because of the supposed ‘perfection’ of Islam, muslims are unable to identify the real 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 perfect storm of dysfunctional marital, sexual and kinship practices. It massively overvalues the chastity and purity of females whilst, at the same time, creating sexually violent societies which put that very chastity and purity at increased risk. The solutions Islam offers to this conundrum exacerbate the problems, and thus creating a social and normative context in which chastity assurance measures such as FGM, become useful or even necessary.

FGM in the modern Islamic world

In 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood worked to decriminalize FGM. According to Mariz Tadros (a reporter),"the Muslim Brotherhood have offered to circumcise women for a nominal fee as part of their community services, a move that threatens to reverse decades of local struggle against the harmful practice [...] Many of the Brothers (and Salafis) argue that while it is not mandatory, it is nevertheless mukarama  (preferable, pleasing in the eyes of God)."^[11]

FGM as Un-Islamic – A Brief History

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

there is no FGM in the Qur'an

see FGM in the Qur'an

mutilation is forbidden by Qur'an

the FGM Hadith are weak

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)

not all muslims practice FGM

The underlying assumption of this argument is that only those practices which all Muslims engage in can be Islamic.

lack of consensus of scholars

'sunnah circumcision'

mention reliance of the traveller mistranslation

Defining 'Bazr' (بَظْرٌ )

Nuh Ha Mim Keller, an American convert to Islam, in 1991 published the (then) only English translation of ‘The Reliance of the Traveller’ (the most authoritative handbook of Sharia law). Instead of translating the word ‘bazr’ as ‘clitoris‘, he translates it as ‘prepuce of the clitoris‘ – thus appearing to mitigating the severity of the practice.

(the abbreviations in the text mean: A: comment by Sheikh ‘Abd al-Wakil Durubi, Ar: Arabic, n: remark by the translator)

Nuh Ha Mim Keller gives no justification for translating Bazr (بظر) as ‘prepuce of the clitoris’ rather than just ‘clitoris’. And all Arabic dictionaries give the word 'Clitoris' for Bazr ( بظر). None lists ‘prepuce of the clitoris’ even as a secondary definition. A systematic consultation of online Arabic dictionaries gives the same result (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H), as does Google Translate.

If one accepts Keller’s definition of Bazr (بظر) then one has to accept that:

1. Arabic speakers, writers and translators have, over the past 1400 years, been getting the definition of Bazr wrong,
2. that Arabic has no word for ‘clitoris’.

To translate 'bazr' as 'prepuce of the clitoris' is to treat what is an extreme improbability as if it were a certainty merely because it fits with the translators axiomatic belief in Islam's perfection.

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.

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’.

See Also

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

References