Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is definitively top of the list for being the worst kind of evil exercised against women to date. In the course of my research regarding this issue, the cases that I have come across have left me stunned and sick to the stomach. No other form of degradation quite compared to FGM. What I also find troubling is how the practice is associated / attributed with Islam / Islamic practice, and particularly so by the likes of Christopher Hitchens and Ayaan Ali Hersi.
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How could it be that God could order (or through Islamic teaching encourage) such an unjust act? Firstly, it is important to note that the simplistic label of FGM fails to differentiate between the different types of cutting. Not all forms of this practice are equal in procedure and do not result in such horrific consequences, which can then be labelled as mutilation. A more accurate term therefore would perhaps be female circumcision. Take for example Labiaplasty which has become very popular in the West. This procedure is just one of an endless list of body improvement options available to women. That is, along with breast enlargement, buttock augmentation and toe surgery (yes, even toes have not been spared from the rigorous procedures required to obtain 'perfection'). What is Labiaplasty? Cosmetic Labiaplasty (labia minora reduction surgery) involves surgically reducing and/or reshaping the female external genital structures (genital lips). There are various reasons why an increasing number of women are requesting this procedure. For many women they simply want to enhance or improve appearance of "butterfly" or asymmetrical labia. 'Feeling good about how you look often builds self-confidence and self-esteem' says one plastic surgery website.
It is important to note that female circumcision is not a phenomena restricted to Muslim communities, nor is it restricted, more generally, to any ethnic, religious or socioeconomic classes in society. Female circumcision has been practiced for centuries within various ancient cultures. For example Egyptian mummies were found to have been circumcised as far back as 200 BC. Interestingly, and less well known, a form of female circumcision was promoted among teenage girls in Britain and the United States during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was seen as a cure for lesbian practices or suspected masturbation, hysteria, epilepsy, and nervousness. Currently, the practice is most prevalent in African countries such as Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana and also in parts of the Middle East. With respect to religious adherence, the practice is carried out not only by Muslims but, followers of different religions such as Christians (Catholics, Protestants and Copts) and Animists.
"The Quran makes no references to any form of FGM or lesser procedures."
There are three main types of FGM. Firstly, the removal of the tip of the clitoris. Secondly, total removal of the clitoris and surrounding labia. Thirdly, the most severe form, where all external genitalia are removed and the vaginal opening is stitched nearly closed: only a small opening is Den Haag Letselschade Advocaat left for urine and menstrual blood.
Is this an Islamic practice? The answer is a definitive no. It is more so a cultural practice. It is simply the case that actions that are done for purely cultural reasons, over time, acquire an Islamic justification: FGM is no different. In Islam an act will only be considered Islamic if it has a basis in the Quran, the divine words of Allah-SWT) and the Sunnah, comprised of hadith which are the deeds, words, or statements of approval of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Like any other issue requiring a clear Islamic verdict, it is necessary to refer to these fundamental sources to establish whether there is any evidence substantiating approval for the practice of FGM. The traditions (sunnah) of the Prophet (PBUH), which are well documented should indicate whether or not there are any authentic or relevant traditions that can be used to support the practice.
The Quran makes no references to any form of FGM or lesser procedures. There are also no implicit orders form the Sunnah to support such a practice. There are, however, narrations mentioning female circumcision. These narrations are considered weak (related to the weak nature of their transmission rendering it lacking in juristic value). Those who argue FGM/C has an Islamic basis often do so on the basis that that the following hadith establishes it as part of the Sunnah or Tradition of the Prophet:
'Um Atiyyat al-Ansariyyah: A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina. The Prophet (pbuh) said to her: "O Umm `Atiyyah! Trim, but do not cut into it, for this is brighter for the face (of the girl) and more favorable with the husband."
On first impressions it may seem as if this practice was ordered/encouraged by the Prophet. However the Prophet Muhammad encountered a woman who was going to proceed with the circumcision anyway, all he did was suggest that she remove a smaller amount of genitalia than she had originally intended, and in doing so avoid excessive measures. There is no order here to conduct any form of female circumcision- that is, unlike male circumcision, where a direct request to do so is explicit in other narrations/Quranic texts.
In a Hadith narrated by Abu Hureira (RA), the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) said, "whenever a man becomes a Muslim he must be circumcised."
Even if one were to argue that trimming is of Islamic value since it is mentioned in the hadith, it does not necessarily follow that Islam allows what is considered to be FGM. Making the jump from this to the abhorrent practice of FGM is too large a leap. The most one can possibly infer from this hadith is trimming, which is commonly referred to as Labiaplasty in the West (and not cutting into it which is involved in FGM).
"One commonality persists; they are grounded primarily in ignorance and superstition."
So if Islam doesn't legitimate this practice what are the reasons behind it being carried out? A study in Nigeria by the World Health Organisation found that women within the Igbos tribe believe that FGM makes them more feminine and thus more attractive to men. The organisation's social study in other African communities established that the practice is believed to raise the social status of families and generates income when the daughters get married and the dowry is paid. Behind the illusion of 'Islamic practice' we clearly see the overwhelming factor for its justification is cultural influence and traditions, social acceptance within the community, ensuring chastity and fidelity by attenuating sexual desire. Reasons may vary from culture to culture but one commonality persists; they are grounded primarily in ignorance and superstition.
Proponents of the practice argue that if a woman's genitalia is not cut she will be sexually uncontrollable and sexually overactive, so cutting ensures that women remain chaste. In some cultures, the practice is believed to enhance love as girls are taught how to satisfy a man sexually (improves a woman's sexuality) and other matrimonial rituals that 'cement' a marriage. It is also a way a woman can achieve recognition and economic security through marriage and child bearing. FGM is also often a prerequisite for qualifying for wifehood. The practice therefore accords a woman economic and social protection. In addition, FGM is also believed to improve a woman's sexuality as it brings about "dry sex," which provides more pleasurable sex to men. This dryness is achieved by using certain herbs and ingredients that reduce vaginal fluids and increase friction during intercourse, which is attained by using the fourth type (unclassified) of FGM. Men are understood to love dry sex and if a woman is wet, they think it is not normal.
If a practice is not Islamic and simply permissible (mubah) it may or may not be carried out- remains the choice of the individual. If it is forbidden i.e. Haram, which we can substantiate through the Quran and the Sunnah, then we can conclude inductively that FGM is prohibited. FGM may cause numerous physical complications, including hemorrhage and severe pain, which can cause shock and even death. Long-term complications resulting from interference with the drainage of urine and menstrual blood can result including infertility, chronic urinary tract infections or kidney damage. Kidney damage is caused by recurrent urinary tract infection, which causes bladder and ureters infections. Infections can spread to the pelvic girdle, causing chronic uterus, fallopian tube and ovary infections. FGM increases problems associated with childbirth. Severe forms of mutilation cause partial or total occlusion of the vaginal opening, labour may be prolonged or obstructed this can cause lead to stillbirth and maternal death.
The Quran states in surah 2 verse 195 "...do not contribute to your destruction with your own hands..." This verse is understood generally to outlaw suicide and other forms of self harm. Some jurists use this verse to argue that smoking is prohibited since it harms the body. FGM is far in comparison.
Also, Prophet Moahmmed(pbuh) said: "There shall be no inflicting of harm on oneself'.
Furthermore, It can be argued that this practice is prohibited since mutilated genitalia reduces/eliminates a woman's pleasure during sex. It is well known in the Islamic tradition that men are not allowed to finish having sex until a women is satisfied. So how can an act which interferes with this process be allowed if it eliminates a women's sexual pleasure?
In light of the above it seems a gross error to connect FGM with Islam/Islamic practice. There are in fact good reasons to argue female circumcision (Labiaplasty) is not valued in Islam. FGM, in my view, amounts to a reflection of deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. It is a practice that violates a woman's rights to health, security and physical integrity. Such an act is akin to the cruel and evil pre-Islamic practice against women of burying their daughter alive. Prophet Mohammed vehemently opposed and attacked this practice. Just as burying the daughter alive was axiomatic to the pre -Islamic society and the Prophet attacked this so should the evil cultural practice of FGM be condemned and fought against today.
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Sin and crime go hand-in-hand in a pernicious 21st Century world and create an imminent need for the use of holy scripture for defining, reproving, and correcting common law crimes that are sins, and sins that are crimes. The latter days that are preceding the imminent return of Jesus to the earth, as the avenging lion to judge mankind, are as much in need of Christian voices crying "repent for the kingdom of heaven is nigh" as was the voice of John the Baptist was crying repentance just prior to the beginning of Jesus' personal ministry in the 1st Century. Basic human immorality is today frequently not equated with acts and practices prohibited by the Ten Commandments, such as lying, coveting, and adultery, since those three reprehensible acts are regarded by most human beings in the 21st Century world as merely instinctive human behavior and undeserving of judgment. People, especially politicians, will say that lying is necessary in a pragmatic world devoid of idealism in order to achieve political goals. Lying under a sworn oath is, however, a crime called perjury, which is hardly ever prosecuted in courts of law in an utterly juristic and legalistic society. Similarly, lusting after, or coveting something that does not belong to you invariably leads to, either, adultery, stealing, or fraud in order to obtain, by hook or crook, what does not belong to a person, and these cardinal sins are now regarded as, only, human nature. Then there are the sins against nature that were, and continue to be, so heinous that God probably thought that their shocking obviousness made it unnecessary for Him to include them in the written Holy law. I suppose God created man and woman, hoping that with the free will he gave them, they would choose through wisdom to refrain from behaviors that would bring pain, suffering, and reproach on them.
In the very beginning of the legislation of civil and criminal common law, as applied to human civilization, there were certain human acts, behaviors, and practices that were regarded as against natural law. Take, for instance, Hammurabi's Code of ancient Babylonia, created around 1760 B.C. The preservation of the natural heterosexual family was regarded as sacrosanct by Hammurabi, and was the most important part of his Code. Adultery, incest, and homosexuality were not tolerated to any degree. Why was this so? The rationale produced by Hammurabi was that such unnatural acts served to denigrate the family. If, therefore, a person committed adultery, incest, or homosexuality, he, or she, was punished with death by drowning. This might have been due to the effect that Hebrew law had on the ancient world 4,000 years before Hammurabi and, later, the birth of Christ.
A cogent parallel can be drawn quite distinctly between the cultural and legal changes that occurred in the pagan Greek and Roman civilizations after 325 A.D. Before the 3rd Century, Greece and Rome thrived, in decadence and carnality during their cultural years before the coming of Jesus, on humanistic deviations from natural law (the practice of pedophilia, homosexuality, sodomy, and bestiality according to unbridled lust). What occurred after Rome, Greece, and all of Europe were Christianized through the apparent conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine to Christianity, around 325 A.D., was a blending of Judaea-Christian morality with pervasive Roman tradition, a not-so-holy union. Nonetheless, homosexuality, pedophilia, sodomy, concupiscence, adultery, and bestiality were outlawed, and the Judaea-Christian code, the Ten Commandments, was applied to existing civil and criminal law as heinous sins became crimes and crimes were regarded as sins. What we are now experiencing in the USA, in the early 21st Century, is a mind and soul-rending aberration of natural law that began to reoccur in the late 20th Century as a result of pagan philosophical humanism (as corrupt as it was in ancient Greece and Rome) stemming from the social apathy of a majority of American Christians and Jews. The ancient aberrant Greek and Roman philias stemming from unnatural lusts, such as pedophilia, bestiality, and a new psychosexual aberration called transsexualism (deriving itself directly from homosexuality) have, for nearly five decades, again become a sordid cultural binge for a society of apathetic Christians and Jews, who apparently regard these psycho-sexual pathologies as a "right of Americans to freely express themselves." This late-20th Century normalized regard for sin, and sexual crime, has caused a great many Christian preachers, ministers, and evangelists to refrain from calling sin what it is in the eyes of God in order to refrain from offending the sinners, and bringing human criticism on themselves. Perhaps this is what happened to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah over hundreds of years as they became corrupt and wicked over time, to an inexorable point of no return to godliness, where total destruction by God was necessary.
So, how should 21st Century Christians respond to the perpetrators of age-old heinous sins, and the crimes stemming from such sin? To answer this question properly, let's begin with the basic unit of society, the family. Christian parents are told in the scriptures of the Holy Bible, especially the New Testament. to be godly examples unto their children by eschewing all evil, as Job did, as recorded in Job1:1 (NIV), "In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil." In the King James Version, Job is referred to as "perfect and upright before God," but, how do imperfect sinful human beings succeed in eschewing, or shunning, "all" evil according to the law of Christ? Well, first off, there aren't any perfect, sinless, people in the world in the 21st Century, and there have never been any such people upon the earth since the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. The Holy Law, comprising the Ten Commandments, was, before Christ, mainly a measuring stick according to outward human behaviors. For example, even though true honor for a father and mother, according to the Fourth commandment, always emanated from within the mind and heart of a person, the overt acts that a person did, prior to the death of Jesus, were those that only mattered to God according to the Holy Law at that particular time. In other words, a son or daughter might have actually despised their parents in their mind and heart, but, yet, if they acted as though they honored them by their outward expressions of honor, they were fulfilling the requirements of the law. As another example, take the sixth commandment, regarding adultery. The overt act of adultery has always started with a thought or desire, but the Sixth commandment, before the coming of Jesus, did not concern a thought process, but only a physical sexual one. A person could yearn continuously, in the mind and heart, for sexual satisfaction with someone other than a wife or a husband and not be guilty of adultery. Yet, when the mental desire turned into the physical act of sexual intercourse with someone other than a wife or husband, adultery was committed. There were two of the Ten Commandments, the Ninth and Tenth, that were based entirely on thought and emotion. These two commandments involved lusting and coveting. Coveting was, and is, based entirely upon the mental desires of the individual person, and lusting after, or for, a man's wife, or a woman's husband, or for money, power, or any physical possession is merely an extension of coveting, or wanting something for your own that doesn't belong to you.
In essence, Jesus the Christ will one day judge every saved Christian, and every other unsaved unchristian human being, for every idle thought and every intentional act they commit against the will of God, which is a much higher standard than that which existed for the people of the Old Testament world. This does not, in any wise, detract from the salvation from sin by grace offered by Jesus to all who believe in him. Jesus knows the content of all human minds and hearts, and he will judge all Christians accordingly. So here we are in a 21st Century world contending against the same heinous sins and crimes against nature which Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had to contend. In a nutshell, there has never been such a thing as a new morality calling age-old pernicious sin good and pleasurable. It has only been an old immorality raising its ugly head at much later times. As such, the 20th Century produced, in obscurely small but measurable increments, a degenerate nihilist society of humanists who grasped at the valueless garbage produced by such evil philosophers as Frederick Nietzsche and George Hegel to proclaim that good and evil do not exist, but only a substantive means for achieving pragmatic goals for heuristic purposes. And so came, with such ungodliness, a 20th Century world turned upside-down with the carnal sins against nature that had been abominations ever since Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden.
Nonetheless, along with these age-old sins and crimes reemerging into a modern century