This article first appeared in the Jewish Press.
One of Indonesia’s largest Islamic organizations is causing a controversy by objecting to a UN plan to ban female circumcision, ABC News reported.
The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) says female circumcision is part of Islamic teachings and that it is their constitutional right.
MUI chairman Ma’ruf Amin has called on hospital and clinics to provide the service to people who would want their daughters circumcised. Read more
12 Comments
Why do you people always want to confound the issues by associating Islamic female circumcision with FGM when we know these are altogether two different things with different effects. Female circumcision involves removing the skin (prepuce) around the clitoris, which enhances, not curbs women’s sexuality. This procedure allows the clitoris to be exposed for greater stimulation since it does away with the prepuce which serves as an obstacle to sexual satisfaction. The clitoral prepuce also harbours germs such as the cancer-causing HPV. Thus female circumcision as required by Islam prevents Urinary tract Infections, AIDS and transmission of cancer-causing HPV to husbands through oral sex. :See: http://asiffhussein.com/2015/04/02/female-circumcision-the-hidden-truth/
Mr. Hussein, I find it interesting that you, a Muslim man, feel that you are knowledgeable enough about women’s sexuality to support the genital cutting of girls. First, let’s one thing straight. Call it what you will, adults need to think seriously about cutting the genitalia of any child. One can justify it in all kinds of ways, including religion as you do on your website. The question to be asked is, why is it so important to adults to deny children the right to their own bodily autonomy? And your claim that removing the prepuce enhancing sexual gratification is not true. In fact, the prepuce (as well as the male foreskin) serves an important role in preventing irritation and painful, overstimulation. (Nature does work in our favor sometimes.) Finally, the idea that we should be slicing off body parts to prevent disease is misguided and potentially dangerous. We don’t remove children’s ears to avoid ear infections or remove girl babies’ ovaries to avoid ovarian cancer. Leave children as they were born. If they want to remove perfectly working body parts when they are adults, they can certainly make that choice.
Removing the covering of the clitoris removes its natural protection from rubbing, irritation, and constant sexual stimulation by direct contact with clothing etc. IT’S MEANT TO BE LEFT THERE. God didn’t tell you ANYTHING, Mr. Hussein, it’s simply a barbaric “religious” practice. And it’s sexual assault. Be the guy – the one gu – who stands up and says, “This practice has got to stop. It’s bad for the girls and it traumatizes them.” BE THAT GUY.
Allow the the ban to all forms and types of FGM.
It’s sexist and horrible the fundamentalists and cultural relativists are presenting what the whole Islam faith is about, controlling women’s sexuality to please men. It’s still FGM to preform Hoodtomy on patients who are under the age of 18 who are not consenting. FGM is far worse than rape, FGM shares the concept as rape and sexual assault; it’s all about controlling women.
It’s not FGM for women who are adults in United States that pay for hoodtomy because no one is forcing them to do it, and it’s by their own free-will; the same should be for foreskin amputation.
You can’t disprove or prove “god” or “gods” exist, however what really matters is making choices that won’t hurt humanity. Allah or the female mutilator is an excuse to continue the practice, if you show respect to a higher power, can’t you do it without compromising natural law?
Why should honoring god be placed first before humanity?
No one knows who god is and is making up stories just to have power over people.
Whatever the religious beliefs in relation to male and female circumcision, it should be left for the person being circumcised to decide whether to go through with it or not.
No, it should not be left up to those who are indoctrinated. Why do you think that their women think that they are closer to their god if they wear their burka??!!
Brainwashed!!
What a dangerous thing to say. Do you think girls in that situation are truly free to defy their parents? That they would feel safe if they spoke up? It is up to ADULTS to bring up children without hurting them. This practice is sexual assault with a deadly weapon and should be prosecuted as such.
All children, regardless of gender, culture or parental religion, have a fundamental right to all of their healthy functional body parts.
Greg, thank you for standing up for the rights of the young individuals who are forced to undergo these rituals. It is disheartening that adults the world over continue to seek justifications for the cutting of children’s genitalia. Just as with African facial-scarring and the discontinued practice of Chinese foot-binding, adults will stop at nothing to be able to continue abusive practices that are customary.
There are many sayings of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) to show the important place, circumcision, whether of males or females, occupies in Islam. Among these traditions is the one where the Prophet is reported to have declared circumcision (khitan) to be sunnat for men and ennobling for women (Baihaqi).
He is also known to have declared that the bath (following sexual intercourse without which no prayer is valid) becomes obligatory when both the circumcised parts meet (Tirmidhi). The fact that the Prophet defined sexual intercourse as the meeting of the male and female circumcised parts (khitanul khitan or khitanain) when stressing on the need for the obligatory post-coital bath could be taken as pre-supposing or indicative of the obligatory nature of circumcision in the case of both males and females.
Stronger still is his statement classing circumcision (khitan) as one of the acts characteristic of the fitra or God-given nature (Or in other words, Divinely-inspired natural inclinations of humans) such as the shaving of pubic hair, removing the hair of the armpits and the paring of nails (Bukhari) which again shows its strongly emphasized if not obligatory character in the case of both males and females. Muslim scholars are of the view that acts constituting fitra which the Prophet expected Muslims to follow are to be included in the category of wajib or obligatory.
That the early Muslims regarded female circumcision as obligatory even for those Muslims who embraced Islam later in life is suggested by a tradition occurring in the Adab al Mufrad of Bukhari where Umm Al Muhajir is reported to have said: “I was captured with some girls from Byzantium. (Caliph) Uthman offered us Islam, but only myself and one other girl accepted Islam. Uthman said: ‘Go and circumcise them and purify them.’”
More recently, we had Sheikh Jadul Haqq, the distinguished head of Al Azhar declaring both male and female circumcision to be obligatory religious duties (Khitan Al Banat in Fatawa Al-Islamiyyah. 1983). The fatwa by his successor Tantawi who opposed the practice cannot be taken seriously as we all know that he has pronounced a number of unislamic fatwas such as declaring bank interest halal and questioning the obligation of women wearing headscarves.
At the same time, however, what is required in Islam, is the removal of only the prepuce of the clitoris, and not the clitoris itself as is widely believed. The Prophet told Umm Atiyyah, a lady who circumcised girls in Medina: “When you circumcise, cut plainly and do not cut severely, for it is beauty for the face and desirable for the husband” (idha khafadti fa ashimmi wa la tanhaki fa innahu ashraq li’l wajh wa ahza ind al zawj) (Abu Dawud, Al Awsat of Tabarani and Tarikh Baghdad of Al Baghdadi).
This hadith clearly explains the procedure to be followed in the circumcision of girls. The words: “Cut plainly and do not cut severely” (ashimmi wa la tanhaki) is to be understood in the sense of removing the skin covering the clitoris, and not the clitoris. The expression “It is beauty (more properly brightness or radiance) for the face” (ashraq li’l wajh) is further proof of this as it simply means the joyous countenance of a woman, arising out of her being sexually satisfied by her husband. The idea here is that it is only with the removal of the clitoral prepuce that real sexual satisfaction could be realized. The procedure enhances sexual feeling in women during the sex act since a circumcised clitoris is much more likely to be stimulated as a result of direct oral, penile or tactile contact than the uncircumcised organ whose prepuce serves as an obstacle to direct stimulation.
A number of religious works by the classical scholars such as Fath Al Bari by Ibn Hajar Asqalani and Sharhul Muhadhdhab of Imam Nawawi have stressed on the necessity of removing only the prepuce of the clitoris and not any part of the organ itself. It is recorded in the Majmu Al Fatawa that when Ibn Taymiyyah was asked whether the woman is circumcised, he replied: “Yes we circumcise. Her circumcision is to cut the uppermost skin (jilda) like the cock’s comb.” More recently Sheikh Jadul Haqq declared that the circumcision of females consists of the removal of the clitoral prepuce (Khitan Al Banat in Fatawa Al Islamiyya. 1983).
Besides being a religious duty, the procedure is believed to facilitate good hygiene since the removal of the prepuce of the clitoris serves to prevent the accumulation of smegma, a foul-smelling, germ-containing cheese- like substance that collects underneath the prepuces of uncircumcised women (See Al Hidaayah. August 1997).
A recent study by Sitt Al Banat Khalid ‘Khitan Al-Banat Ru’ yah Sihhiyyah’ (2003) has shown that female circumcision, like male circumcision, offers considerable health benefits, such as prevention of urinary tract infections and other diseases such as cystitis affecting the female reproductive organs.
The latest is the study Orgasmic Dysfunction Among Women at a Primary Care Setting in Malaysia. Hatta Sidi, and Marhani Midin, and Sharifah Ezat Wan Puteh, and Norni Abdullah, (2008) Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health, 20 (4) accessible http://myais.fsktm.um.edu.my/4480/ which shows that being Non-Malay is a higher risk factor for Orgasmic Sexual Dysfunction in women, implying that Malay women experience less problems in achieving orgasm than non-Malay women. As you know almost all Malay women in Malaysia are circumcised (undergo hoodectomy) in contrast to non-Malay women who are not. This would suggest that hoodectomy does in fact contribute to an improved sex life in women rather than diminishing it as some argue.
Another good reason why women need a hoodectomy (Islamic female circumcision). It can prevent cancer arising from oral sex. Here’s an interesting news item:
US scientists said Sunday there is strong evidence linking oral sex to cancer, and urged more study of how human papillomaviruses may be to blame for a rise in oral cancer among white men. In the United States, oral cancer due to HPV infection is now more common than oral cancer from tobacco use, which remains the leading cause of such cancers in the rest of the world.
Researchers have found a 225-percent increase in oral cancer cases in the United States from 1974 to 2007, mainly among white men, said Maura Gillison of Ohio State University. “The rise in oral cancer in the US is predominantly among young white males and we do not know the answer as to why.”
It is obvious that the only way men can acquire the HPV virus is through the oral stimulation of one’s partner’s clitoris which allows the virus to enter the mouth. The virus no doubt is harboured in the prepuce of the clitoris just as it has been found that HPV also resides in the foreskins of males, through the transmission of which cervical cancer occurs in females. Thus a hoodectomy could, by removing the part that harbours the virus, significantly reduce or eliminate the risk of women transmitting the virus to their male partners.
For more benefits of Islamic female circumcision also known as hoodectomy see http://www.umatia.org/2011/Safe%20Female%20circumcision.doc
You, and people like you, should be sterilized and have any children unfortunate enough to be born to you taken away before you have a chance to cause irreparable damage to their bodies as a result of your bizarre sexual fetishes.