Posted by
Gabrielle Cusumano on Tuesday, November 28, 2006 12:26:09 PM
Call to end female circumcision
Muslim scholars from around the world have called for female genital mutilation to be banned and those who carry it out to face punishment. At a conference on the subject in the Egyptian capital Cairo, the scholars said governments should enforce existing laws against the practice. Earlier the top religious authorities in Egypt said religion offered no justification for the procedure.
Female genital mutilation is widespread in parts of Africa and the Middle East. It is relatively unknown in most other parts of the Muslim world, including South and South-east Asia, North Africa and Saudi Arabia.
Female circumcision typically involves removing the clitoris of a young girl. Parents who support the practice argue that it helps prevent promiscuous behaviour in their daughters. Genital mutilation or female circumcision often robs women of sensitivity in their sexual organs.
The Muslim scholars said female circumcision was an aggression against women and should be stopped.
The scholars stressed that Islam forbid people from inflicting harm on others, explaining that those who circumcise their daughters were doing exactly that. The latest declaration was unequivocal and should go a long way towards bolstering campaigns to eradicate the practice in Egypt and elsewhere, says the BBC's Heba Saleh, in Cairo.
In recent years, Muslim scholars have spoken out against female genital mutilation, but some had insisted that while it was not required by religion, it was not prohibited. Others said it might be desirable in some cases and that it should be up to the medical profession to decide, our correspondent says.
The conference on the subject in Cairo was organised by a German human rights group, Target, and attracted Islamic clerics from across the world. Earlier, speakers explained there was no religious reason for the practice, but hinted doctors should make any final decision.
Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the head of the al-Azhar mosque, Sunni Islam's top authority, told the conference: "From a religious point of view, I don't find anything that says that circumcision is a must [for women]." "In Islam, circumcision is for men only," the Associated Press news agency quoted him as saying.
Ali Gomaa, Egypt's top official Islamic scholar, or grand mufti, told the gathering no examples of the practice could be found in the Prophet Muhammad's life.
Another leading cleric, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, said that Islam did not require the practice but some clerics felt it was allowed. Friday, 24 November 2006,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/middle_east/6176340.stm
Mosque: girls must be circumcised 8 April 2004 (Background Information Article)
AMSTERDAM — For the first time in the Netherlands, a mosque has come out in support of female circumcision, according to a newspaper report Thursday.
There have been many claims in the media in recent years about "imported brides" who are forced by their husbands to stay in the family home — unless accompanied outside by a male relative. Some of these women, it is claimed, live in total isolation from Dutch society.
The pamphlet says that women who lie deserve 100 blows and the husband's duty of care for his wife is negated if she refuses him sex or leaves the home without his permission, newspaper Trouw reported.
There have been many claims in the media in recent years about "imported brides" who are forced by their husbands to stay in the family home — unless accompanied outside by a male relative. Some of these women, it is claimed, live in total isolation from Dutch society.
The call for girls to be circumcised — removing part of the female genitalia — is likely to cause the biggest outcry so far. If done right, the mosque's pamphlet claims, circumcision is healthy for both boys and girls.
But unlike male circumcision — in which the mosque claims that for reasons of hygiene, the male's foreskin can be circumcised — there are absolutely no medical grounds for female circumcision.
Nevertheless, it urges that the foreskin of a girl's clitoris should be removed, but not the clitoris itself — as is often wrongly assumed to be the case. Removing the foreskin would help the woman keep her feelings of lust under control, the pamphlet says.
In recent weeks, politicians have called for the Dutch government to do more to stop the practice among immigrant communities. To date, the Health Ministry has ruled out compulsory checks on girls to make sure they have not been circumcised.
The Pharos health centre for refugees said never before has a mosque in the Netherlands come out publicly in support of female circumcision.
Ironically, El Tawheed Mosque organised the open day to counteract negative publicity caused by previous controversial statements made by one of its imams which were condemned as fostering anti-western and anti-woman bias.
On one highly-publicised occasion, an imam referred to non-Muslims as "firewood for hell" and he forbade Islamic women to leave the family home without the permission of their husbands.
"Fatwas of Muslim Women" continues on this theme and states that science has proved men and women differ in "biological nature, physical capabilities and mental capacity". It says it is unjust to give women the same "responsibilities, rights and duties as men".
The pamphlet, written by a "prominent imam" and published in Egypt in 2000, was one of the many booklets available at the open day.
Trouw noted "Fatwas of Muslim Women" lacks any biographical information about the author, Mufti Ibn Taymyah (or Taymiyya).
He lived in the 14 century and has been described by Arabism scholar Hans Jansen as an "influential ideologue for militant Islamists". Jansen has drawn comparisons between Taymyah and Osama bin Laden.
[Copyright Expatica News 2004]
http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=19&story_id=6458
[Copyright Expatica News 2004]