EGYPT: A battle over female circumcision

Islamists and conservative clerics are fighting proposed legislation in the Egyptian parliament that would criminalize female circumcision and raise the minimum age of when a girl can marry. The Islamists view the bill as an affront to Sharia law. 

The legislation drafted by the government-backed National Council for Motherhood and Childhood would impose a prison sentence of as long as two years and a maximum fine of 5,000 Egyptian pounds, or about $1,000. The proposal would raise the minimum age of marriage from 16 to 18. The bill has been met with a storm of anger by a number of delegates from both the majority and the Islamist opposition led by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Opponents say the new restrictions are an attempt by the government to impose a Western agenda on an Islamic society. Some clerics, in opposing the bill, state that Islamic Sharia law condones female circumcision and imposes no minimum age of marriage. "Religion does not prohibit or criminalize female circumcision," prominent Islamic scholar Mustafa al-Shaka said to the local press this week.

Islamic scholars have been divided over the religious validity of female circumcision. One camp holds that Islam opposes it, while the other argues that this procedure, in which parts of the female genitals are removed, is necessary to tame a woman's sexual desires and ensure decency.

The bill's architects hold that there is a national consensus on the criminalization of female circumcision. "Nobody can deny that the Egyptian society resents the negative health effects caused by [female] circumcision," said Moushira Khattab, secretary-general of the National Council for Motherhood and Childhood. "Thus, the punishment of those who conduct that practice is a must."    

Female circumcision remains a widespread practice in Egypt, despite having been illegal for years. About 70% of Egyptian girls are believed to be victims of the practice. Last summer, the death of a 12-year-old girl in Upper Egypt in a clinic where she was undergoing the procedure reignited calls to impose harsher penalties on practitioners of the surgery.

— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo

Comments

[allyson rowen taylor]

This is a very important story. Read more about this at this blog

http://shariahfinancewatch.wordpress.com

[Engelbrekt]

One could think it was a farce that in the year 2008 people serious discuss the issue if to mutilate woman on the grounds of what is said in hearsay stories from 850 AD to 1000 AD. And BTW the Koran is likewise hearsay and even if some stupidity is weeded out by dumping the aHadith is troublesome enough if it is to be taken literary.

[DrFreex]

The Hadith remains as the greatest blemish on Islam, a weed that has outgrown the original fundamentals enshrined in the Qu'ran. When the Hadith had started to dictate for us what is or what is not in Islam (some 250 years after the passing of the prophet) that was when Islam was filed into the libraries of theology as the last religion that too has been lost..

Hadhith needs to subject to rigorous critical review. Most of these so called sayings of the prophet are stories related by way of mouth over centuries, before somebody thought it would be a great idea to collect it all into a book(s) and keep it next to the Qur'an. In doing so it has made the Qur'an to be sidestepped as merely a Holy book that is to be recited blindly and revered from a distance. The Hadhith has replaced the word of God, and the result we see is this. One could dig up an infinite number of Hadith corroborating or rejecting Anything as per the wishes of the Islamic Priests, whose disproportionate & overzealous xenophobia of the ways of the infidel has resulted in a Moslem mass that is suffocating under the claustrophobia.

Muslims need to take their Holy Book from the clutches of these self appointed keepers, and return it to its rightful place as the word of God, delivered to us through the mouth of Prophet Muhammed.
And they need to demote the Hadhith to merely a collection of prophetic accounts, that could in no way pass off as solid doctrine.

[Tom Jordan]

There are references in the Hadith where it mantions both the male and femail circumcised parts coming together, and also where Mohammed gave specific instructions to a female circumciser as to how to do it. So to say it is not supported by Islam is an untruth. 2 of the 4 primary schools of Islamic thought teach that female circumcision is mandatory Sunnah.

[Amira Nour]

Neither Sharia Law or any law should condone such actions. The practice of circumcision is an abdominal action, and has nothing to do with any religion.

[Kalifa Faisal]

Sharia laws also provides for anyone living in a Muslim country to either be a Dimi (slave) or be killed at the whim of whichever Muslim around decides on the spur of the moment.

Likewise, any Muslim living in a free country should also fall under Sharia law, become a slave of Americans, pay a special slave tax or be killed at the whim of anyone for any reason.

Laws like Sharia laws are really double edged swords.