Female Genital Mutilation: An Islamic Practice

[Grantywanty]

Apologists for Islam go to great lengths to make it seem like women are respected by Islam, but this is not the case. I raised this issue on another thread and was told that FGM is an African Practice, not an Islamic one, an argument that ignores the widespread use of this practice through the middle east an onward, including, for example, Indonesia, where circumcision arrived with Islam and not with Africans or African culture.

The link below goes to another forum where the common arguments against the Assertion I make in the subject heading are taken apart rather thoroughly:

http://www.taoofdefiance.com/2007/06/08/female-genital-mutilation-an-islamic-practice/

Of course other religions are sexist and 'Western Culture(s)' have their own shit to own up to in relation to women, but until Muslims begin to honestly look at the way they institutionalize their hatred of women in a variety of ways the religion will nto be appealing to most intelligent women not born into it. And more and more you will find those women born within it trying to change Islam into something the vast majority of men with power in Islamic societies would consider NOT Islam.

 

[PsychoticEpisode]

To all oppressed women everywhere.....Good luck trying to change the man's world.

 

[S.A.M.]

I'm a female. A Muslim. Never heard of it in India or Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or Bangladesh.

 

[WildBlueYonder]

Apologists for Islam go to great lengths to make it seem like women are respected by Islam, but this is not the case. I raised this issue on another thread and was told that FGM is an African Practice, not an Islamic one, an argument that ignores the widespread use of this practice through the middle east an onward, including, for example, Indonesia, where circumcision arrived with Islam and not with Africans or African culture.

I'd like to see muslim women try to justify this practice. hey samcdkey?

what could be the reasoning, health, hygiene, or ?

 

[Medicine*Woman]

I'm a female. A Muslim. Never heard of it in India or Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or Bangladesh.

*************
M*W: Good for you. I've read about it happening in Sudan and some of the other backward countries in Africa. Are you saying that you were unaware of this going on, or just not in the areas you are familiar with. I have personally never seen this type of genital mutilation in any of the patients I have had.

Isn't the clit rings and vulva piercings popular today a form of mutilation? I've seen this in both young women and men, but by the time I get to see them, they are usually infected!

 

[Medicine*Woman]

I'd like to see muslim women try to justify this practice. hey samcdkey?

what could be the reasoning, health, hygiene, or ?

*************
M*W: From what I've learned, the practice is to remove the clitoris of young pubescent girls (10-14 years) so they will be unable to enjoy sexual activity.

 

[WildBlueYonder]

I'm a female. A Muslim. Never heard of it in India or Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or Bangladesh.

Where is FGM Practised?
The majority of cases of FGM are carried out in 28 African countries. In some countries, (e.g. Egypt, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan), prevalence rates can be as high as 98 per cent. In other countries, such as Nigeria, Kenya, Togo and Senegal, the prevalence rates vary between 20 and 50 per cent. It is more accurate however, to view FGM as being practised by specific ethnic groups, rather than by a whole country, as communities practising FGM straddle national boundaries. FGM takes place in parts of the Middle East, i.e. in Yemen, Oman, Iraqi Kurdistan, amongst some Bedouin women in Israel, and was also practised by the Ethiopian Jews, and it is unclear whether they continue with the practice now that they are settled in Israel. FGM is also practised among Bohra Muslim populations in parts of India and Pakistan, and amongst Muslim populations in Malaysia and Indonesia.
As a result of immigration and refugee movements, FGM is now being practiced by ethnic minority populations in other parts of the world, such as USA, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. FORWARD estimates that as many as 6,500 girls are at risk of FGM within the UK every year.

http://www.forwarduk.org.uk/key-issues/fgm

 

[WildBlueYonder]

*************
M*W: From what I've learned, the practice is to remove the clitoris of young pubescent girls (10-14 years) so they will be unable to enjoy sexual activity.

hi MW, how are you?

MW, do you agree that FGM is a form of slavery, 3rd-class status, a mind-control method (via aversion therapy to sex) & the objectification of women?

 

[S.A.M.]

http://www.forwarduk.org.uk/key-issues/fgm

Bohra Muslims? Shias? Wow, thats news to me. My neighbors were Bohras and they certainly did not practice it. Whats the source?

 

[DiamondHearts]

Apologists for Islam go to great lengths to make it seem like women are respected by Islam, but this is not the case. I raised this issue on another thread and was told that FGM is an African Practice, not an Islamic one, an argument that ignores the widespread use of this practice through the middle east an onward, including, for example, Indonesia, where circumcision arrived with Islam and not with Africans or African culture.

I'm a student of Islamic Theology, therefore I have the knowledge to state that this practice is forbidden in Islam. The defiling of the human body is a huge sin in Islam. Piercings are allowed only for women and only on the ears and nose. Islam even forbids permanent tatoos.

What possible evidence can you bring that Islam supports this practice. I would like to see full citations from hadith books to back up this view.

I am fully aware that this type of mutilation is only limited to some families in the African nations including Egypt and Sudan, it is not as common as you would like us to believe. This practice does not exist in Indonesia or the Middle East.

As for some comments implying a reason for this practice related to Islam, please provide some proof. This is a pre-Islamic custom, and completely isolated to a few instances in a few African nations

 

[Wisdom_Seeker]

I think that the reason for female genital mutilation is that men had been very defensive when it comes to female multiple orgasms. It makes men feel a little inferior.

 

[Grantywanty]

I think that the reason for female genital mutilation is that men had been very defensive when it comes to female multiple orgasms. It makes men feel a little inferior.

Also the idea that a woman might have desire and want it satisfied. The men can worry if they did, if someone else could better, if she has motivation to seek it elsewhere and even will she initiate sex and make me feel out of control.

 

[Grantywanty]

What possible evidence can you bring that Islam supports this practice. I would like to see full citations from hadith books to back up this view.

Check the link. REligions often vary greatly from their texts.
Thou shalt not kill
Turn the other cheek.
He who is without sin cast the first stone.

I see a Christian history filled with actions, with the approval - tacit or open of the churhes - for not listening to Jesus.

Practice should be how we judge a religion. And FGM not only is approved of and considered honorable by many religious leaders in Islam, the practice spread with the religion. I am sorry if this does not fit your interpretation of the texts. I truly wish, if you are correct, that the texts had more influence on the religion.

 

[Grantywanty]

I'm a female. A Muslim. Never heard of it in India or Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or Bangladesh.

It is often said that there is no prostitution in these countries. You have societies with extreme male control of all public and private organizations. But check the link I provided, through that you can find out what is really going on in some of those countries.

 

[Zakariya04]

dear Granty,

it is very disapopointing that you started this thread in the way you did.

FGM is not an Islamic practice so lets just stop it right there, if it was then all muslim females wouid have it done just like guys get circumsized.
it wooudl ahve been more prefereable to entitle the thread siomehting like this

"FGM a practice in ......(eg a country)

~~~~~~~~~~
take it ez
zak

 

[SkinWalker]

It is true that the custom of FGM isn't defined by Islamic law but by cultural laws and customs, but the cultures that practice FGM are quick to cite Islam as the source of their atrocity.

The quote Wild Blue gave is accurate in the dispersion of the practice, though it is imported wherever there are Islamic cult members from these cultures immigrating to other nations, including Europe and the United States. There have been documented cases of FGM in the U.S., some of which resulted in prosecutions. In other cases, the female children were taken back to the Sudan or Kurdistan (or other Islamic nations) to have the procedure done.

Anthropologically speaking, the practice is one of Bedouin origin and was important to maintaining the lineage of the clan. A common practice among Bedouins was to kidnap females during raids and impregnate them with the seed of a rival clan. By sewing shut freshly mutilated vaginal lips, the vagina could be shut and ad hoc attempts to rape a woman/girl thwarted. For the husband to make his child, the process would involve cutting the scar tissue first then a painful intercourse.

A more common form of FGM, however, is the cliterectomy in which the cliterous is completely removed. This is usually done at about age 7-12 (depending upon the specific culture/family) and the girl is held down and mutilated by family members with a razor blade or whatever sharp piece of glass or obsidian they have. Little concern is given to her pain or sterile environment, as this is part of the ritual.

A less drastic form of the cliterectomy involves removal of the skin that sheaths the cliterous only.

While the practice of FGM originated independent of Islam, it is now a practice that is done solely by Islamic cultures and one that would probably have died off without the support of Islamic doctrine, however misused that doctrine might be.

Yet another bit of evidence that Islam is not a peaceful cult.

 

[S.A.M.]

It is often said that there is no prostitution in these countries. You have societies with extreme male control of all public and private organizations. But check the link I provided, through that you can find out what is really going on in some of those countries.

There is no prostitution as understood in the West and its not so extreme male control either. Plenty of sex dictated by the women. I've heard stories you wouldn't believe from some of the women.

 

[S.A.M.]

From this:

It is true that the custom of FGM isn't defined by Islamic law but by cultural laws and customs, but the cultures that practice FGM are quick to cite Islam as the source of their atrocity.

To this:

Yet another bit of evidence that Islam is not a peaceful cult.

One can understand the ignorance of those with no access to information, but underestimating the power of continuity of control mechanisms in patriarchial societies seems rather short-sighted IMO.

Anthropologically speaking, the practice is one of Bedouin origin and was important to maintaining the lineage of the clan.

Really?

It seems that in all societies where female excision is practiced, male circumcision is also performed. Male circumcision is represented in reliefs of the Egyptian tomb of Ankh-Ma Hor of the sixth Dynasty (2340-2180 B.C.) and in other Egyptian representations of pharaonic times. But whether excision and infibulation had a parallel development is unclear. By the time of the first millennium B.C., however, there is evidence that the custom was certainly practiced in Egypt. The oldest known source that records the custom is the work of Herodotus (484-424 B.C.). He states that excision was practised by the Phoenicians, Hittites, and Ethiopians as well as the Egyptians. Circa 25 B.C., Strabo, the Greek geographer and historian, reports that the Egyptians circumcised their boys and excised their girls. Evidence is also found in the medical literature. Soramus, a Greek physician who practiced about 138 A.D. in Alexandria and Rome, supplies a detailed description of the operation of excision in Egypt and of the instruments used. Another physician, Aetius (502-575 A.D.), describes the operation in a similar fashion. Both state that the purpose was the reduction of female sexual desire.
Moreover some archaeologists claim that the well preserved Egyptian mummies attest to the presence of clitoridectomy. It is also generally agreed rîat excision was practiced mostly by the ruling class. It was a sign of distinction for the females of royal families and the priestly cast of Egypt. Women were thought to be the only possessors of magic, and FGM was an attempt to obtain control over this magic power.
According to some sources, Jews and Arabs aquired the practices of clitoridectomy and infibulation in Egypt. During the Arab conquest of North Africa, the practice was picked up and spread to other parts of the world.
FGM is practiced primarily by Muslims but also by Christians, Animists, atheists and Jews (only by Fellashas living near Gondar in Ethiopia). The practice is widespread in areas where poverty, illiteracy and unsanitary conditions predominate, and where the economic and social standing of women is low. It is practiced in more than twenty-six countries of the African continent and in some areas of the Arabian peninsula and Asia.

 

[SkinWalker]

If Islam were a truly a peaceful religion, then it wouldn't hesitate to squash such a horrendous and atrocious practice that is conducted in the name of Islam today. Please... cite me the fatwa that has been issued which makes FGM against sharia law and is enforced.

It is "officially" against the law in some nations, such as Sudan, but this law is not enforced. Meanwhile, in Sudan, thousands are killing each other each year over their religious beliefs and Islam is consistently involved.

Face it. Islam is *not* a peaceful religion. I *can* be when certain passages of the koran are dismissed or ignored, but the nutters that overlook peaceful passages will always find these and show how it is allah's will that infidels be converted or killed; that apostates be killed; that homosexuals be killed; that women be oppressed, etc., etc.

Doubtless you'll continue to spam us with one-liner rebuttals and such, but you aren't changing a damn thing about the nature of Islamic violence and oppression in the theocracies that hold their citizens captive to cult beliefs.

If you want to prove to me that Islam is a peaceful cult, speak out publicly against its cult leaders who issue fatwas demanding all sorts of violence and atrocity.

FGM is bad. We all agree. It is supported by Islamic religious nutters and Islam is used by the practitioners to continue the practice. If it weren't for Islam, the practice probably would have died out.

 

[S.A.M.]

If Islam were a truly a peaceful religion, then it wouldn't hesitate to squash such a horrendous and atrocious practice that is conducted in the name of Islam today. Please... cite me the fatwa that has been issued which makes FGM against sharia law and is enforced.

It is "officially" against the law in some nations, such as Sudan, but this law is not enforced. Meanwhile, in Sudan, thousands are killing each other each year over their religious beliefs and Islam is consistently involved.

Face it. Islam is *not* a peaceful religion. I *can* be when certain passages of the koran are dismissed or ignored, but the nutters that overlook peaceful passages will always find these and show how it is allah's will that infidels be converted or killed; that apostates be killed; that homosexuals be killed; that women be oppressed, etc., etc.

Doubtless you'll continue to spam us with one-liner rebuttals and such, but you aren't changing a damn thing about the nature of Islamic violence and oppression in the theocracies that hold their citizens captive to cult beliefs.

If you want to prove to me that Islam is a peaceful cult, speak out publicly against its cult leaders who issue fatwas demanding all sorts of violence and atrocity.

FGM is bad. We all agree. It is supported by Islamic religious nutters and Islam is used by the practitioners to continue the practice. If it weren't for Islam, the practice probably would have died out.

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. The practice is older than the hills in the region. There is also evidence that it may have developed independently in Australian aborigines and some other primitive cultures. Male circumcision is still carried out for reasons of hygiene even in nonreligious societies.

Your ifs are groundless and based on nothing more than uneducated bigotry. Attacking the religion does not address the issue, in fact it fudges it. Separating it from the religion and identifying it for what it is, a power issue, is what is needed for its eradication.