THE AMBASSADORS
Summer Issue
SELECTED STUDIES

Volume 2, Issue 3
July 1999

Over the past decade, the topic at the forefront of most feminist discourse on the Middle East has been the issue of female circumcision. Referred to by its critics as female genital mutilation (FGM), the ritual operation is still practiced in several Arab and African nations. However, much of the writings and reports on the ritual have falsely attributed the operation's emergence and perpetuation to Islamic tradition. The Ambassadors published in its last issue an indepth selected study responding to three of the most frequently asked questions on female circumcision from the Islamic standpoint by Dr.Gamal Badawi. This issue's selected study features a distinguished gynaecologist's view on the same topic.

- The Ambassadors

 

FEMALE CIRCUMCISION

By Prof. Hassan Hathout.
FRCOG, FRCSE, FACS, PhD (Edin)
Los Angeles, California, USA

This topic may be out of place in a book on Islamic aspects, for the practice is neither Islamic nor ordained by Islam. There is however erroneous confusion in many circles that ascribe it to Islam. The procedure long antedates Islam, and its geographical distribution is different from the map of Islamic peoples. For thousands of years, it was prevalent in the Nile valley viz Egypt, the Sudan and Ethiopia, as well as in limited communities in Arabia, Russia ans South America. Its exact origin in history is unknown. The reason is said to be moral, for if the external genitals are reduced this is thought to tame down sexual desire and helps girls not to succumb to their sexual desire. This is of course not so, for sexual appetite is aroused by psychological and hormonal mechanisms.

In its mild form, the operation entails a trivial trimming of the margins of the libia minora. The extreme form, infibulation, entails removal of libia minora and clitoris, stiching the raw margin leaving a small opening for egress of urine and mensis and ingress of the penis at sex. This extreme form was present especially in the Sudan, and at child birth an anterior episiotomy has to be made.

Typically, the operation is performed during childhood, more often by the old village lay woman than by the doctor. It is nowadays almost gone... one more dying habit. Complications were rare, and included haemorrhage, sepsis, urethral injury, implantation dermoid and dyspareunea, apart from the psychological aftemath. After marriage, circumcision might result in undermining sexual pleasure by making the woman less prompt to attain orgasm.

Female circumcision was known within Judaism, Christianity and Islam... but none of the three religions specifically ordained or prohibited it. At the time of the Prophet there was a tribe who subscribed to circumcision of their girls. The women who used to perform it for them was called Om Rafiea. Seeing that they strongly clinged to their custom and receiving no divine guidance for its prohibition, the Prophet advised Om Atiya:

"Take the minimum Om Atiya and don't exceed it... for it is more pleasurable to the husband and protective of chastity (by satiating the woman's desire)" ( Ibn Maja)

During a long career in gynaecology and obstetrics dealing with patients practically from all muslim countries, we find that the practice of circmcision is confined only to Egypt, the Sudan and Ethiopia. Women from other muslim, Arab and non-Arab, countries are not circumcised. Lately the operation was made illegal and it is indeed very rare in the contemporary chil population.

Prof. Hassan Hathout is one of the distinguished scientists. He is a former professor of gynaecology and obstetrics in Assuit University, Egypt and in the University of Kuwait.

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