Surgical operation performed on girls in the Nile Valley, northeast Africa, and parts of West Africa

Female circumcision has been the subject of fascination, horror, and feminist agitation in the West. There is little doubt that circumcising women is linked to control of female sexuality. In the feminist literature, the term female genital mutilation (FGM) has tended to replace female circumcision as a more accurate description of the operation performed upon young African girls in the Nile Valley, northeast Africa, and parts of West Africa.

There is no reference to female circumcision in the Qurʾan, and it is only mentioned in the hadith where Muhammad is said to have advised the use of the sunna (customary) method, not to destroy or mutilate, for this is better for the man and would make the woman's face glow. The right of a woman to sexual satisfaction in marriage is upheld in Muslim interpretations. There is general agreement that female circumcision was already customary in societies where Islam spread, and that since it was not prohibited by Islam its continued practice was permitted.

The greatest prevalence of female circumcision is in the African continent - especially in northeast and eastern Africa and across the Sahel to West Africa - where it is also practiced by some Christian groups in Ethiopia and Egypt. The Islamic faith enjoins modesty and proper sexual conduct for both males and females, but as is true for other faiths originating in the Middle East, the sexual double standard demands more protection and greater monitoring of women to guard their chastity. Female circumcision is a powerful ally, but it is neither the only approach nor is it commanded by Islam. The religious scholars (ulama) in different Muslim countries have at different times interpreted the shariʿa as either being neutral to the practice (Sudan during colonial times) or in favor of female circumcision (Egypt under recent Islamist pressure). The grand shaykh of Al-Azhar University, Gad al-Haq Ali Gad al-Haq, ruled in a 1995 fatwa that "female circumcision is a noble practice that does honor to a woman," and that medieval scholars had ruled that both male and female circumcision is mandated by Islamic law. However, Egypt's grand mufti Sayyid Tantawi argued that circumcising women is not part of Islamic teaching and is a matter best evaluated by medical professionals.

Three different forms of circumcision are recognized: (1) clitoridectomy, or the excision of the tip of the clitoris only; (2) modified excision, or the removal of the clitoris and parts of the labia majora and minora; (3) infibulation, or excision of the clitoris and all of the labia majora and minora, leaving a smooth vulva and a small opening for the common flow of urine and menses. The latter (called Pharaonic circumcision in Sudan) is most widely practiced in Somalia and parts of East Africa. The less severe forms of the operation are more commonly found in West Africa. Female circumcision is not practiced in some of the most patriarchal of Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan, or in Jordan, where killings of allegedly un-chaste women are believed to protect family honor.

The global women's rights movement has asserted that female circumcision is in a category with other human rights violations, such as domestic abuse and honor killings. An international human rights campaign against FGM has advocated banning it, or at least some amelioration of the practice, as a violation of girls' and women's rights. The Vienna Human Rights Conference in 1993 and the Beijing International Women's Conference in 1995 passed resolutions against FGM and called for state-supported and international educational and public health campaigns to end or ameliorate the various practices associated with it.

Bibliography

Gruenbaum, Ellen. The Female Circumcision Controversy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.

Sanderson, Lilian Passmore. Against the Mutilation of Women. London: Ithaca Press, 1981.

Toubia, Nahid. Female Genital Mutiliation: A Call for GlobalAction. New York: Women Ink, 1995.

— CAROLYN FLUEHR-LOBBAN

Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.