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= | =Islamic Doctrine & the Social Origins of FGM= | ||
A significant minority of Muslims practice FGM. It is tempting to conclude that they do so because the Prophet Muhammad decreed favourably on the practice [[Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars:Female Genital Mutilation|in four hadith]]. This conclusion is made all the more tempting by the fact that debates as to whether or not FGM is Islamic tend to be conducted exclusively as if the question were resolved by determining whether Muhammad decreed favourably (or otherwise) on FGM in the Sunnah and in the Qur'an. | |||
But any explanation for the existence of FGM has to account for the existence of four groups: | |||
# Muslims who practice FGM | |||
# Muslims who don't practice FGM | |||
# non-Muslims who practice FGM | |||
# non-Muslims who don't practice FGM | |||
The existence of the third group (non-Muslims who practice FGM) undermines the idea that Muslims engage in FGM simply because Muhammad decreed favourably on the practice. However, most non-Muslims who practice FGM today do so as a consequence of living for centuries under the dominance of an FGM-practicing Islamic culture - the most notable example being the Egyptian Copts. For the Copts, maintaining the practice of FGM has been a centuries-old strategy to minimise persecution and stigma from a Muslim majority who would treat 'uncut' women, their families and communities as impure and contaminating. So the existence ''today'' of non-Muslims who practice FGM does not necessarily undermine the hypothesis that Muslims engage in FGM simply because Muhammad decreed favourably on the practice. The Copts, for example, practice FGM because their Muslim neighbours require them to do so. | |||
But we should remember that non-Muslims existed before Islam and some of these practiced FGM. Why? Why would people engage in this practice | |||
The political scientist Gerry Mackie has gone a long way towards answering this question in his paper ‘Ending Footbinding and Infibulation: A Convention Account'<ref>http://webarchiv.ethz.ch/soms/teaching/OppFall09/MackieFootbinding.pdf</ref>. In this paper Mackie identifies polygyny, extreme polygyny in particular, as generating conditions in which both FGM and footbinding become functional, in which they resolve actual problems faced by the parents of girls and the community. | |||
<references />The correlation between Islam and FGM is due to both Muhammad explicitly favouring the practice, but also to its tendency to create social conditions (laws, beliefs, institutions, traditions) that generate problems for which FGM is a solution. | |||
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== Pre-Islamic FGM == | |||
<br /> | |||
== Who Practices FGM? Statistics == | |||
Who practices FGM? | |||
==The Origins and Causes of FGM== | ==The Origins and Causes of FGM== | ||