User:Flynnjed/Sandbox: Difference between revisions

{{Quote|Bukhari 5891; Muslim 527|Abu Hurayrah said: I heard the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) say: “The fitrah is five things – or '''five things are part of the fitrah – circumcision''', shaving the pubes, trimming the moustache, cutting the nails and plucking the armpit hairs.”}}This hadith uses the Arabic word ''khitan'' for 'circumcision'.   

'Reliance of the Traveller' by by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri (1302–1367) is the Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law according to Shafi'i School. {{Quote|''Reliance of the Traveler'' [''Umdat al-Salik''], Section e4.3 on Circumcision|'''Obligatory (on every male and female) is circumcision.''' (And it is the cutting-off of the skin [''qat' al-jaldah''] on the glans of the male member and, '''as for the circumcision of the female, that is the cutting-off of the clitoris')}}'''Nuh Ha Mim Keller's 1991 translation of Reliance of the Traveller is bowdlerised to make its content more acceptable to Western eyes and translates the word 'bazr' ( بَظْرٌ ) as 'clitorial prepuce' instead of simply 'clitoris' (see section [[#Defining Bazr|Defining Bazr)]].'''

The hadith [[#other ladies|'One Who Circumcises Other Ladies']] suggests that FGM was practiced by the Banu Quraysh, Mohammed's native tribe, and that the FGM reported in the Hadith (which therefore took place after Mohammed's migration to Medina) was a practice carried over from pre-Islamic Mecca.{{Quote|{{Bukhari|5|59|399}}|“[…] I went out with the people for the battle. When the army aligned for the fight, Siba’ came out and said, ‘Is there any (Muslim) to accept my challenge to a duel?’ Hamza bin `Abdul Muttalib came out and said, ‘O Siba’. O Ibn Um Anmar, '''the one who circumcises other ladies!''' Do you challenge Allah and His Apostle?’ […]”}}The Hadith tells how, prior to the actual fighting, Hamza, one of Mohammed’s companions, taunts the Meccan warrior, Siba. Hamza implies that Siba is like ‘Ibn Um Anmar’ – a woman who was a known circumciser of women. The more descriptive phrase ‘muqteh al-basr‘ – ‘one who cuts clitorises‘ – is used rather than the usual KHITAN.

This taunt suggests that clitoridectomy was practiced by the Quraysh, and that it was a role reserved for women, probably of low-status, hence its insulting nature when directed against a warrior. The taunt could only be effective if it humiliated Siba in the eyes of ''both'' his fellow Meccan warriors and also the muslim warriors. Thus its use implies that members of both camps had knowledge of the practice and a shared culture of clitoridectomy. The fact that a circumciser of women could be famous (or notorious) also suggests that it was an established practice with the Meccan Quraysh.

A culture's kinship system has far reaching consequences - determining laws, beliefs and institutions that, at first sight, can appear only distantly related. From the the previous section, it might be remarked that Islam, by allowing and encouraging polygyny, not only reproduces the originating conditions for FGM but also enshrines in law and custom some secondary consequences of polygyny - such as bride-price, veiling, gender segregation, and arranged and child marriage, and excessive preoccupation with feminine 'purity'.  

Indeed, Islam could be characterised as ''the codification and sacralisation of polygyny, and of the consequences of polygyny''.

Monogamous kinship systems approach a state of equilibrium where every man and woman can expect to find a spouse. This state of equilibrium is impossible in a polygynous system. Females become a commodity with both an inherent value (beauty, the pleasure they give, their reproductive capacity) and also value as a status symbol (the more wives you have the higher your status). This fuels a dynamic where the demand for marriageable females always exceeds the supply, where elite men can never have enough wives and poor men are doomed to systemic bachelorhood.

 

Because of the supposed ‘perfection’ of Islam, Muslims are unable to identify the real causes of the sexual violence endemic to their societies. It is instead attributed to notions that female sexuality is excessive, indiscriminate and dangerous if left unchecked by chastity assurance measures such as FGM. Islam thus creates a perfect storm of dysfunctional marital, sexual and kinship practices. It massively overvalues the chastity and purity of females whilst, at the same time, creating sexually violent societies which put that very chastity and purity at increased risk. The solutions Islam offers to this conundrum exacerbate the problems, and thus creating a social and normative context in which chastity assurance measures such as FGM, become useful or even necessary.

 

Thus Islam establishes a positive feedback loop: Islamic polygyny deprives poor young men of sexual or affective hope; this generates sexual violence; from which Islam protects girls and women by further segregating and isolating them.

Sex-slavery is a consequence of polygyny and Islam allows both slavery and sex slavery. The scarcity of females creates a sexual, affective and marital famine at the bottom of society which has been traditionally solved either by poor young men forming militias and capturing females from neighbouring tribes, or by them engaging in sexual violence towards girls and women of their own community.

This fosters conditions where girls and women are at a heightened risk of sexual violence, increasing the utility or necessity for Chastity Assurance practices such as FGM.

The introduction of sex-slaves into the polygynous system aggravates the bride-famine. If Islam had limited the number of wives a man can have to four, and also forbidden sex-slavery, the polygynous gradient would have been less steep, and indeed, polygyny would have probably have become increasingly moderate and rare and eventually died out. But by allowign sex-slavery Islam has smuggled unregulated polygyny - if a man is rich enough he can have as many 'concubines' as he likes. A steep polygynny gradient intensifies the communities hyperynous urges and the proportion of young men systemically doomed to bachelerhood.

This explains the observation made by social scientists such as Joseph Heinrich et al and William H Tucker (“Marriage and Civilization: how monogamy made us human”) that polygynous societies are by their very nature belligerent and sexually violent.