Women in Islamic Law: Difference between revisions
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{{QualityScore|Lead=1|Structure=1|Content=4|Language=1|References=3}}'''This article is currently undergoing an overhaul, please do not edit it.''' | {{QualityScore|Lead=1|Structure=1|Content=4|Language=1|References=3}}'''This article is currently undergoing an overhaul, please do not edit it.''' | ||
== Genital mutilation == | |||
In some Islamic countries women face the certainty of female circumcision, otherwise known as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Somali women's rights activist and ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali notes that in her own homeland virtually every girl has her clitoris excised, sometimes when as young as five years old, and that the practice is always justified in the name of Islam. | |||
Uncircumcised girls are told they will become prostitutes but that circumcised girls will be pure and will retain their honor and dignity. Ayaan Hirsi Ali describes her own genital mutilation in her book ''Infidel'': | |||
{{Quote||Grandma caught hold of me and gripped my upper body… Two other women held my legs apart. The man, who was probably an itinerant traditional circumciser from the blacksmith clan, picked up a pair of scissors. With the other hand, he caught hold of the place between my legs and started tweaking it, like Grandma milking a goat... Then the scissors went down between my legs and the man cut off my inner labia and clitoris. I heard it, like a butcher snipping the fat off a piece of meat. A piercing pain shot up between my legs, indescribable, and I howled. Then came the sewing: the long, blunt needle clumsily pushed into my bleeding outer labia, my loud and anguished protests, Grandma's words of comfort and encouragement… When the sewing was finished, the man cut the thread off with his teeth. That is all I can recall of it.<ref>Ayaan Hirsi Ali - [http://www.amazon.com/Infidel-Ayaan-Hirsi-Ali/dp/1416526242 Infidel (p. 32)] - NY: Free Press, 2007, ISBN 9781416526247</ref>}} | |||
Among Muslims FGM is prevalent mainly in Egypt, Sudan, and Somalia, and in other African countries. Muslims who practice it invest genital mutilation with religious significance. One Islamic legal manual states that circumcision is required "for both men and women." | |||
====Reliance of the Traveller==== | |||
This manual of Islamic law prescribes female circumcision, but with an interesting twist. In English versions, the law forbids removal of the female clitoris, while in the original Arabic no such restriction exists. | |||
English translation: | |||
{{Quote||e4.3 Circumcision is obligatory (O: for both men and women. For men is consists of removing the prepuce from the penis, and for women, removing the prepuce (Ar. bazr) of the clitoris (n: not the clitoris itself, as some mistakenly assert).}} | |||
Original Arabic: | |||
{{Quote||Circumcision is obligatory (for every male and female) by cutting off the piece of skin on the glans of the penis of the male, but '''circumcision of the female is by cutting out the clitoris''' (this is called khufaad).}} | |||
To Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, the Grand Imam of Cairo's al-Azhar, the oldest and most prestigious university in the lands of Islam, female circumcision is "a laudable practice that does honor to women." Tantawi is no fringe figure: he is, in the words of a BBC report, "the highest spiritual authority for nearly a billion Sunni Muslims." | |||
In endorsing female circumcision he uses this considerable spiritual authority to perpetuate a practice that gives women lifelong pain and blocks their access to sexual fulfillment. But perhaps in the eyes of Sheikh Tantawi the pain is worth the result: most authorities agree that female circumcision is designed to diminish a woman's sexual response, so that she will be less likely to commit adultery. | |||
==Marriage== | ==Marriage== | ||
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==Women – social status== | ==Women – social status== | ||
<br /> | |||
==Sexual relations with women in Islam== | ==Sexual relations with women in Islam== | ||
==Shame and honor== | ==Shame and honor== | ||
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The United Nations Population Fund estimated in September 2000 that as many as 5,000 women and girls fall victim to such killings each year. Some examples: | The United Nations Population Fund estimated in September 2000 that as many as 5,000 women and girls fall victim to such killings each year. Some examples: | ||
==See also== | ==See also== |