Thus far, over
seven years in the region, there had been no need to address the issue. Years
ago in Melbourne Faisal at the Footscray café had dismissed the controversy as
typical Western mischief-making. In the Eritrean and wider African community no
one practiced female circumcision, suggested Faisal.
Among the Singaporean Malays it had
passed entirely without mention, and if the practice occurred in Indonesia it
was a closely guarded secret.
In
Malaysia this morning’s newspaper featured a long item on its Letters page,
where a female researcher and activist affiliated with the International
Women’s Alliance for Family & Quality Education summarized the
position.
It
seems female circumcision (FC) was a cultural practise that predated Islam; the
discussion revolving around the Hadiths, the
sayings of the Prophet (as distinct from the Holy Book, the Qur’an).
Firstly,
the writer made a hard distinction between FC and female genital mutilation
(FGM), the latter being “forbidden in Islam as it would have an adverse effect
on women.”
Proponents
suggested as for male circumcision, FC was compulsory; others regarded it
as sunnah—an act of worship that was encouraged, but not
obligatory.
Various
viewpoints from the different schools of law—Hanafi, Maliki, Shafii—were
presented in the article, and passages of Hadith, which
latter were graded weak (daif), or sound (sahih).
Community and religious leaders were
cited for interpretation, and the writer stated that the Qur’an did not condemn FC, “as long as it does not compromise the
health of the female.”
Two
passages from one of the “sound” Hadiths reported
the putative words of the Prophet:
(To
a woman in Medina who had performed FC) “Do not cut severely as that is better
for a woman and more desirable for a husband.”
And
“Do not cut off too much as it is a source of enjoyment for the woman and more
likable to her husband…. When you circumcise, you must not cut off too much as
it is a source of loveliness of the face and more enjoyable for the husband.”
In
the afternoon over coffee an academic friend (female) reported that she was unaware
of the practise of FC in Malaysia until it had been brought up at one of the UN
forums since the recent election.
NB. The friend above subsequently forwarded a recent Youtube posting that treated the position more fully, without mention of the Prophet’s insights.
New Sunday Times, 23 Dec 2018
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