The fact is that FGM is an Islamic religious obligation on every Muslim female and is based on the following authentic hadiths of the prophet Muhammad,
“Umm Atiyya al-Ansarite narrated that a woman used to circumcise in Medina, and the prophet said to her, ‘Do not overdo it, because this makes woman more favourable and it is more agreeable for the husband” (Sahih al-Bukhari, Libas 63, 64, Isti’dsan 51; Muslim, quoted in Tahara 49, Shaltut, Khitan al-untha, in Liwa’ al-Islam, 1951: 55).
“A’isha narrated another authentic hadith that the prophet Muhammad said: When a man sits between the four parts (arms and legs of his wife) and the two circumcised parts meet, then ghusl is obligatory" (Sahih Muslim, hadith no. 349).
“The prophet Muhammad said, Circumcision is a sunna for men and a preservation of honour for women” (Hadith of Abu al-Malik and Abu Dawud).
How Female Genital Mutilation is done to Muslim Female Children!?
Dr. Thomas Ahmed
When she was in Canada Inaas learned about Female Genital Mutilation or Cutting. She knew it was a required religious obligation and backed by some authentic hadiths of the prophet Muhammad. “Umm Atiyya al-Ansarite narrated that a woman used to circumcise in Medina, and the prophet said to her, ‘Do not overdo it, because this makes woman more favourable and it is more agreeable for the husband” (Sahih al-Bukhari, Libas 63, 64, Isti’dsan 51; Muslim, quoted in Tahara 49, Shaltut, Khitan al-untha, in Liwa’ al-Islam, 1951: 55). “A’isha narrated another authentic hadith that the prophet Muhammad said: ‘When a man sits between the four parts (arms and legs of his wife) and the two circumcised parts meet, then ghusl is obligatory" (Sahih Muslim, hadith no. 349). Yet, in another hadith, “The prophet Muhammad said, Circumcision is a sunna for men and a preservation of honour for women” (Hadith of Abu al-Malik and Abu Dawud).
Following the commandment of the prophet Muhammad, Muslims circumcise their girls so that they could preserve the honour of the family. Every Muslim girl would be circumcised at the age of four or five. “Female genital mutilation or cutting ‘involves the removal or the sealing of the labia majora and the labia minora together after the entire clitoris has been removed’ (Lois 1985: 115,).
When the Muslim girl under goes the female genital mutilation she would become abnormal. Her vagina would be so narrowed or so sealed that it would be reduced to a small hole that allows only the girl to urinate. The woman who performed the circumcision would use a reed that little bigger than a needle and smaller than a nail to measure the hole that should be left open after the circumcision. That hole would be a little bigger than an eye of a needle. Therefore, when the girl reached the age of adolescence she would not be able to practice sex even if she wanted to do so. The circumcised girl would experience unbearable pain as if she was being raped and that would prevent her from having sex before marriage. She would not be able even to practice masturbation. Therefore, female genital mutilation or circumcision was meant to control the sexuality of the woman and destroy her desire for the opposite sex. It is barbaric, painful, and harms the woman.
Nevertheless, what troubled Inaas was the primitive and cruel way that operation was performed by a woman who had nothing to do with medical knowledge and surgeon’s experience. As part of her field work Inaas forced herself to attend that barbaric practice. "The woman subjected the four years old girl to the most brutal operation I ever experienced in my life. The little girl was tied with ropes hands and legs. Then, her mother carried her and taken her to a dark room lighted with a dim local lamp. There was a woman who was known as the midwife whose duty was to help women deliver their babies. That woman had never been to school in all her life. The little girl did not know what they were going to do to her. Most probably she thought they wanted to squeeze a baby out of my stomach. After that her mother removed the ropes from her legs and forced her to lie on her back. The little child began to scream. Her fear was intensified when she saw the midwife holding a razor in her hand. Her mother closed her mouth to stop her screaming. The child was so terrified that she thought the woman was going to slice her throat with the razor. However, the neighbours Haja Sakinah and Salwa who happened to be there with us were asked by the mother to help. Each one of them held one leg of the child and spread it as far as she could. The child could not scream because her mother was putting her two hands on her mouth. Then, the midwife began to examine or fondle the private parts of the child. She used wet cloths to clean up the vagina of the child. Those clothes were soaked into normal hot water. She did not use any freezing or apply anything else except water. The midwife used a razor to carry out that cruel operation. Then, she began to cut off the child’s clitoris and slice her labia majora and labia minora. Although three grown up women were holding that child still the terrible pain made the child to struggle for relief and release from that unbearable pain. Then, the midwife used a reed to measure the hole that should be left open after the operation was over. The pain increased to an unbearable state when the woman began to seal the two sliced parts together. The blood was gushing out of the child’s privates like water. Both hands of the midwife were smeared with blood. Even the blood reached the clothes of the mother, Haja Sakinah, and Salwa. The child fainted before the stitching of her two labas was completed. Inaas always shuddered and got very terrified whenever she remembered that primitive, barbaric, and painful operation".
After witnessing that inhumane operation Inaas had decided to return to her country and forget about doing any further field work among those backward and primitive people. However, in a second thought she restrained her emotions and stayed behind. She knew that if she ran away and escaped from those horrifying experiences she would abandon those poor female children and those victimized women. She felt it was her duty and divine calling to witness those evil practices and later on expose them and let the entire world know about them. After witnessing that cruel and evil operation Inaas wondered why the feminists in the West do not speak or condemn such evil practices. Why the Muslim feminists always try to deny and hide those practices and claim falsely they have nothing to do with Islam? The Muslim feminists do not care about those practices because they are not done to them or to their female children as they live in the West and protect by the Western laws and because they don’t want to be accuse of following a religion that justifies and sanctions polygamy and female genital mutilation. They fool the people in the West by arguing that everything that is not mentioned in the Qur’an cannot be accepted as authentic teachings of Islam. However, this kind of fallacious argument perpetuates those evil practices which are always part and parcel of the authentic teachings of the prophet Muhammad. From the very beginning Islam had not and would never be only based on the teachings of the Qur‘an. As a matter of fact, the majority of the teachings of Islam on women are found in the hadiths rather than the Qur’an. Inaas understood that the feminists are the most dangerous people to those Muslim children and women who experience those evil practices in their Muslim countries.
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