Now, if they could only step a little closer to a dentist.....
Posted on 07/04/2007 5:53:45 AM PDT by Valin
Egypt's Muslim religious hierarchy issued a decree on the state MENA news agency on Tuesday outlawing female circumcision as un-Islamic as the authorities prepared to submit a total ban to parliament. "The traditional form of excision is a practice totally banned by Islam because of the compelling evidence of the extensive damage it causes to women's bodies and minds," said the decree issued by the office of the mufti, Sheikh Ali Gomaa.
The Egyptian government announced plans on Thursday to impose a total ban on female circumcision, the widely-practised removal of the clitoris, but the draft law still faces a tough debate in parliament before it is passed. Officially the practice, which affects both Muslim and Christian women in Egypt and goes back to the time of the pharaohs, was banned in 1997 but doctors were allowed to operate "in exceptional cases."
Health Minister Hatem al-Gabali has no decided to ban every doctor and member of the medical profession, in public or private establishments, from carrying out a clitoridectomy, a ministry spokesman told AFP on Thursday. Any circumcision "will be viewed as a violation of the law and all contraventions will be punished," said the official, adding that it was a "permanent ban". A government survey in 2000 said the practice was carried out on 97 percent of the country's women aged between 15 and 45 years of age.
In the latest fatality, 12-year-old Bedur Ahmed Shaker was taken by her mother to a private clinic in Minya, a town on the Nile south of Cairo, for the operation. She died before she could be transferred to hospital.
Wow, one step closer to the 21st Century.
That's odd. I thought the whole point of Islam was to damage women's minds. And their bodies. Rocks are the preferred method.
Oh, cut it out!
What do you bet that the true motivation for this practice is for dirty old imams to get a thrill doing it? It’s a free pass for child rape and mutilation, all under the guise of promoting purity.
>>Officially the practice, which affects both Muslim and Christian women<<
LIARS. SUCH ROTTEN LIARS.
Oh, please. If it hurts, kills or maims, it is definitely in line with the queeran.
You mean cut it off right?
Cheers!
Only an exaggeration. It's just the Christians they *catch* that it happens to. Not all Christians. /sarc> (partly)
NO cheers, unfortunately.
Actually, they remove the clitoris so as to squelch any means of female pleasure in the act of sex.
As you no doubt know, Islamic culture is completely male dominated, and all fault lies with the woman. If someone gets raped, it’s because she was dressed provocatively, not because the man can’t control his own urges - she provoked him to sin. Hence the burka, head scarf, varying degrees of female cover in the Muslim world. Hence the attitude of Islamic men toward non-Islamic women in European countries, and the fact that the woman is held responsible for her own rape under sharia law.
A couple cases - last year a teenage girl in Iran was sentenced to death by hanging because she stabbed one of three men who attacked her in a public park - http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5184. In Saudi Arabia a few years ago, a bunch of young girls burned to death in a school fire because the religious police wouldn’t let them exit the building without their covering - they barred the doors, if I recall correctly. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1874471.stm
Also, in Islam, there is no concept of original sin. They believe that all men start out good, therefore, if they sin, it is an outward influence that is the cause. This allows Islamic men to blame others for their own weaknesses and flaws.
So the thought process continues - if a woman is in effect castrated (and covered up - most countries, and forbidden to go anywhere unchaperoned - most countries, and forbidden to drive - SA and others, and go to school or hold a job - Taliban), she cannot provoke a man to sin.
I’m surprise that the imams are issuing a edict. Hopefully this will start something throughout Muslim Africa, where the practice is most rampant.
Banned in 1997? It seems the Egyptian government's seriousness is on par with the U.S. ban on illegal immigration.
This horrific custom is indeed prechristian and preislamic, and animist (pagan), Christian, and moslem people all do this to their daughters. I’ve read that Christian tribes that have retained the custom “merely” carve a cross lightly on the clitoris...Probably doesn’t destroy the capacity for orgasm, though it doesn’t help, especially since it’s unlikely those inflicting it in a tribal setting use anesthesia or antibiotics.
Beat me to it. Rocks, beheadings, daily beatings, rape, honor killings, general subservience, etc.
Now, if they could only step a little closer to a dentist.....
While the custom is preislamic and is not mandated by the koran (save implicitly in that the koran does mandate misogyny and the reduction of women to at least quasi slavery) many moslems believe the custom is an islamic requirement. As in so many things, they try to usurp Biblical and Jewish figures to serve their ends. They have a folktale in which FGM is invented by Sarah, wife of Abraham. Seems Sarah's jealousy of Hagar and her pregnancy by Abraham so outraged her as to create temporary insanity : Sarah threw Hagar down and mutilated Hagar by carving out her clitoris, so she at least wouldn't enjoy sex with Abraham (who apparently preferred the younger, fertile Hagar, at least for mere pleasure).
Hagar's son Ishmael is (supposedly) the ancestor of the Arab moslems , and so they've retained the custom ever since.
Not that God configured it only to give a woman pleasure. That would be un-islamic.
These people are barbarians no matter how you figure it.
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