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Female Genital Mutilation in Islam: Difference between revisions
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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. | 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. | ||
However, as the section [https://wikiislam.net/index.php?title=Female_Genital_Mutilation_in_Islam&stable=0#FGM_before_Islam FGM before Islam] demonstrates, FGM existed before Islam, and there is no evidence that pre-Islamic FGM was religiously-motivated. Thus FGM can | However, as the section [https://wikiislam.net/index.php?title=Female_Genital_Mutilation_in_Islam&stable=0#FGM_before_Islam FGM before Islam] demonstrates, FGM existed before Islam, and there is no evidence that pre-Islamic FGM was religiously-motivated. Thus it is unlikely that Islamic FGM can be entirely explained by obeisance to religious decrees - there must have been other reasons for its existence in pre-Islamic societies. | ||
It is all too natural to consider FGM as nothing more than an arbitrarily misogynistic practice. However, it is actually a solution to certain social problems - albeit problems that not all societies suffer from, and that no society ''need'' suffer from. The section [https://wikiislam.net/index.php?title=Female_Genital_Mutilation_in_Islam&stable=0#The_origins_of_FGM the origins of FGM] will consider what these 'problems' are, and why they arise in some societies. | It is all too natural to consider FGM as nothing more than an arbitrarily misogynistic practice. However, it is actually a solution to certain social problems - albeit problems that not all societies suffer from, and that no society ''need'' suffer from. The section [https://wikiislam.net/index.php?title=Female_Genital_Mutilation_in_Islam&stable=0#The_origins_of_FGM the origins of FGM] will consider what these 'problems' are, and why they arise in some societies. A subsequent section ([https://wikiislam.net/index.php?title=Female_Genital_Mutilation_in_Islam&stable=0#Islamic_Doctrine_Creating_Social_Conditions_Favourable_to_FGM Islamic Doctrine Creating Social Conditions Favourable to FGM]) shows how Islamic doctrine reproduces the very factors that ''made'' FGM useful or necessary in some pre-Islamic societies. A final section ([https://wikiislam.net/index.php?title=Female_Genital_Mutilation_in_Islam&stable=0#FGM_and_the_Uses_of_Trauma FGM and the Uses of Trauma]) considers how the social purposes of FGM is realised through the individual experience of the child undergoing FGM. | ||
==FGM in the Qur'an and Hadith== | ==FGM in the Qur'an and Hadith== | ||