Speaking of genitalia .. muslim women are now allowed to keep theirs intact. Finally, ten of the highest ranked muslim scholars from all over the world met under the patronage of the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Prof. Dr. Ali Goma'a at the Azhar University on 22-23 November. After listening to several international physicians, they pronounced the sensational decision to classify the custom of female genital mutilation (FGM) as punishable aggression and crime against humanity. As a result, female genital mutilation can no longer be practiced by Muslims. Now awareness of this decision has to be spread in the 33 affected countries.
Cited story.
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Ali Eteraz points me to the fact that the Grand Mufti of Egypt seems to have offered the opinion that 'Muslims can choose their own religion'. This is important, because as Wikipedia says:
All five major schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that a sane male apostate must be executed. A female…
NB: Believe it or not, I actually had to close comments, the first time I've ever had to do it. They had become so offensive without any useful content that it's no longer worthwhile to keep it going. Sorry.
I have repeatedly vowed to stay away from this topic, but in defense of my colleague, I…
Since 1994, when a Nigerian woman and her two daughters were granted asylum in the U.S. based on fear of female genital mutilation (FGM) in their native country, the legal community has been avidly debating the question of whether FGM should be considered grounds for asylum. A 1996 case, in re…
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I feel that it's worth pointing out here that FGM is really a cultural practice, and not a religious one. There are plenty of muslim cultures out there that don't practice this (e.g. Arabs, Persians, Turks.) This is primarily practiced in Africa and is not viewed as a religious thing as much as a tradition that, among other things, prevents lustfulness or distraction by women. It's also worth pointing out that women contribute greatly to doing this to women, and support this as a practice, albeit in the frame of a patriarchal culture. Having some experience with dealing with women from these countries, it's often the grandmother that insists the child get it done, for example here in the US.
What anon4 this said... this is more of an example of a religious rationalization being cobbled together to excuse a barbaric local cultural practice than an example of the religion itself being barbaric.
Sort of like the way Biblical rationalizations were found to justify the practice of chattel slavery here in the USA.
Frederick Douglass had some interesting observations about Christian slaveowners as compared to non-religious slaveowners in My Bondage and My Freedom
Even granting that it's primarily cultural and not religious (which is clearly true), it's still good that religious pressure to stop the practice will be added to the secular humanitarian pressure.
How centralised is Muslim theology? I wasn't aware that there was a central authority who could make such a decision (as there is with the Catholic Church, for instance). I'm a bit worried that this will just be dismissed and ignored by the Muslim religious leaders in the parts of the world where FGM is carried out.
But kudos to Grand Mufti of Egypt for the effort: I hope I'm wrong.
Bob
Bob, Islam has no centralized authority. It's very much like Protestant Christianity, or at least its strands that insist on educated clergy.