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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (218525)	2/14/2007 8:23:27 PM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

You can't draw the conclusion from this article that female circumcision is spreading. (I assume by spreading you mean increasing??) It just says more parents are turning to medical clinics to have the procedure done. The size of the population may be constant but within that population parents are turning away from the way it was done before and asking for medical professionals to do it.

To: Proud_Infidel who wrote (218525)	2/14/2007 9:24:28 PM
From: one_less	Respond to of 281500

OK Brian. I did what any non-biased person can do. I entered the search words 'Female Circumcision' and clicked search. I looked over the list and opened the first two that looked like they had been authored by Muslims. How unsurprising it was that the impression from this was so opposite (as usual) of what you promote about Muslims in your presentation. But then the authors weren't extreme anti-Muslim bigots, with an Annihilate Islam agenda. Here ya go: "Permitting such a ritual constitutes an act of tolerance by Islamic law for pre-Islamic practices, and may be overruled by the Islamic prohibition against harmful acts. Consider, for example, that Islamic law protects a woman's right to sexual enjoyment, as demonstrated by the fact that a woman has the right to divorce on the grounds that her husband does not provide sexual satisfaction. It follows that Islamic law prohibits clitorodectomy (partial or complete removal of the clitoris) or infibulation (excision of part or all of the external genitalia and stitching/narrowing of the vaginal opening), or any genital mutilation which impairs the woman's ability to enjoy sexual relations. Such prohibitions are consistent with the hadithic warning against severity in female circumcision. If the Islamic law does not mandate female genital mutilation and tolerates only the most mild form of circumcision (and that only if it produces no adverse effects in the child), then how does it come about that so many people from certain countries with large Muslim populations insist that savage acts which exceed these limits are not only permitted, but required by Islamic law? The answer becomes obvious when one realizes that Christians from many of these countries also insist that the tradition is mandated by their religion as well. People often confuse traditions rooted in local culture with religious requirements. Immigrants from such countries now residing in the United States stand between the culture of their heritage and the American culture of their environment. They cannot and should not be expected to abandon their religion. There should be no doubt, however, that the young amongst them, at least, will be willing to abandon old-world cultural practices at odds with their adopted culture when such practices are unsupported by religion. (This is because they carry no cultural bias towards such practices. On the contrary, they may absorb biases against them from their adopted culture.) For Muslims, cliterodectomy and infibulation should be considered harâm (prohibited) practices and opposition to it should be part of our ongoing mandate to fight against superstition and oppression. As to the mildest form of female circumcision, the risks to the girl's future ability to enjoy sexual relations with her husband must place it at best in the category of makrûh (disliked) practices. Since it has neither hygienic nor religious value, there is no justification for Muslims to engage in this painful and potentially harmful practice and it would be best to avoid it completely. minaret.org Although female circumcision is not mandated, one tradition of disputed authenticity permits (but does not encourage) the removal of a minuscule segment of skin from the female prepuce, provided no harm is done: A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina [Madîna]. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said to her: 'Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband.'–Sunan Abu Dawûd, Book 41, #5251. One does not want to make too much of this tradition, as it is classified as "weak" by Abu Dawud (the compiler) himself. Nonetheless, it clearly forbids severity in circumcision and bases such limitation on both the potential to harm the woman and the potential to make her less desirable to her husband. Yet, despite the restriction against severity, the Prophet did not here prohibit circumcision completely." themuslimwoman.com