Female Genital Mutilation in Islam: Difference between revisions

The FGM hadith give very few clues as to ''the nature'' of the practice they approve. Hence the nature, incidence and distribution of FGM varies between countries and communities. The most significant determining factor appears to be the presiding school of Islam ([[Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence)|fiqh]]). Other factors include the culture's level of anxiety around female sexuality, its proximity to Islamic slave-trade routes (Infibulation is associated with the transportation of slaves), and the nature and degree of Christian influence ( see [https://wikiislam.net/index.php?title=Female_Genital_Mutilation_in_Islam&stable=0#FGM_in_Islamic_Law FGM in Islamic law]).   

The discussion, debate and analysis of FGM tends to focus exclusively on the question of whether it is Islamic or not. This is not surprising. It arises partly because the majority of Muslim don't practice FGM and have, over the past half century, become troubled by the sizeable minority of Muslims that ''do'' practice it. The focus on the doctrinal issue may also be in part, because it offer a shortcut to explaining the existence of FGM in the Islamic world: if a mother cites her religion as the reason for having her daughter mutilated, and that mother's imam decree the practice as required by Islam, then it feels that something has been demonstrated and proved.   

==FGM in the Qur'an and Hadith==

FGM persists even if its originating conditions lapse, and even when the majority of the community wish to abandon the practice. In a community where it is a pre-condition of marriage that a girl should be mutilated, a parent who doesn't have his daughters mutilated risks having unmarried daughters and having to support those daughters for the rest of their lives, and also suffer the stigma and persecution that comes with having uncut daughters. Thus the consequences of not having his daughters mutilated only serve to reinforce, in the eyes of the community, the necessity of having one's daughters mutilated. The only way a community can abandon FGM is if the whole community, or a significant part of it, in a coordinated manner, pledges to not mutilate their daughters and also, crucially, pledges to only marry their sons to unmutilated girls. This approach - the Pledge Association method<ref name=":0" /> - worked spectacularly well with footbinding in China. However, it has been much less successful with FGM, probably because footbinding was a secular practice, whereas FGM is a religious one.

Debates concerning FGM and Islam are generally conducted in terms of what Islamic doctrine decrees concerning FGM. But moral entities (which can be institutions, groups, individuals and ideologies) are also responsible for, and defined by, that which they allow and that which they inadvertently bring about - a mother does not need to ''compel'' her toddler to play with a loaded gun for her to be responsible for any harm that results from it doing so. She merely has to ''allow'' it to play with the loaded gun, or fail to take reasonable measures to prevent it from doing so. Few 19^th century industrialists ''intended'' their factories to be polluting. But pollution was an inherent consequence of 19^th century industrialism and 19th Century industrialism was responsible for that pollution. A religion's responsibilities (and identity) do not stop with doctrine, but also include the c''onsequences'' of doctrine, including undesirable and unintended consequences.