User:Flynnjed/Sandbox: Difference between revisions

'''FGM IS NOT REQUIRED BY ISLAM'''

'''FGM EXISTED BEFORE ISLAM'''

'''THERE IS NO FGM IN THE KORAN'''

'''THE QUR'AN FORBIDS MUTILATION'''

'''THERE IS NO RECORD OF MOHAMMED HAVING HIS WIVES OR DAUGHTERS CIRCUMCISED'''

'''THE FGM HADITH ARE WEAK'''

'''ISLAM SHOULD ADAPT TO CONTEMPORARY MORES'''

'''MOHAMMED WANTED TO FORBID FGM BUT COULDN’T'''

<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.  

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.{{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.'}}

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 little thought till very recently. The earliest fatwa clearly critical of FGM appears to be one from 1984<ref name=":1" />.

 

There has been a flurry of fatwas concerning FGM in recent decades. This flurry appears to be a response to the non-Islamic world's increasing sensitivity to the rights of women and children, and a growing international awareness and revulsion at the practice of FGM.

-Mohammed would not have needed to command or require the circumcision of his wives, since females in Mohammed’s circle would have been automatically circumcised in childhood. In the [[User:Flynnjed/Sandbox#Someone to Amuse Them|hadith narrated by Umm ‘Alqama]] the persons being cut are clearly children. FGM is generally a practice arranged by female relatives.  

===Framing the Issue and Questions of Responsibility===

Debates concerning FGM and Islam are generally conducted in terms of whether FGM is 'Islamic' - whether Mohammed approved of the practice or not.  

 

But a<s>sking if FGM is 'Islamic' is to ask as the wrong question: it is to ask whether FGM conforms to Islam's best conception of itself.</s>