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Ali Gomaa, the statue-hatin', wife-beatin', Hizballah-supportin' Mufti of Egypt, now says that female genital mutilation is wrong, apparently reversing the Shafi'i school's traditional judgment that it is obligatory (cf. 'Umdat al-Salik e4.3). It will be interesting to see what actions, if any, he takes in order to back up this ruling.
"Mufti bans female circumcision," from Reuters (thanks to JE):
Egypt's state-appointed Grand Mufti said today female genital cutting is forbidden by Islam.His pronouncement came after an 11-year-old girl died while undergoing the procedure at a private medical clinic in southern Egypt.
Genital cutting of girls, often referred to as female genital mutilation or circumcision, is banned in Egypt although the practice remains widespread as a rite of passage for girls and is often viewed as a way to protect their chastity.
"The harmful tradition of circumcision that is practised in Egypt in our era is forbidden," Mufti Ali Gomaa was quoted as saying by the Egyptian state news agency MENA.
There are a couple of weasel words in there. Does he mean that if it is practiced in a different way from how it is practiced in Egypt in our era, it would be all right?
The statement was the strongest yet against the practice by the Mufti, who is the government's official arbiter of Islamic law. The Grand Sheikh of Cairo's prestigious al-Azhar mosque, Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, had previously described the practice as un-Islamic, although some other clerics have supported it.Both Tantawi and Coptic Pope Shenouda, the leader of Egypt's minority Christian community, have said that neither the Koran nor the Bible demand or mention female circumcision, which is usually performed on pre-pubescent girls....
The practice is performed on both Muslim and Christian girls in Egypt and Sudan, but is extremely rare in most of the rest of the Arab world. It is also common in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia.
A 2005 UNICEF report on the practice showed that 97 per cent of Egyptian women between the ages of 15 and 49 had been circumcised.
Egypt's campaign to end female cutting has included television programs aimed at persuading parents to abandon the ancient practice.
Posted by Robert at June 25, 2007 9:36 AM
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...saying it and enforcing it are two different agendas...we will see how it goes for Muslim women...I suspect no change in current practices will occur...which would mean this Muftis words are meaningless to bloodthristy muslims....Islam is for losers.
Posted by: exsgtbrown![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at June 25, 2007 10:34 AM
Trimming off labia and pruning clitorises and other such modern practices are not okay, unless they're okay.
It depends on the definition of 'is'.
I ...
did ...
not ...
have ...
sexual relations
with that woman,
Ms. Lewinski.
Why we are still trying to listen to the leaders of the Islamic world is beyond me. And the time for talking to them is over as well.
They follow the strong horse. 'At your throat or licking your boots.'
Scipio in Carthage, revisited. You're either with us or you're against us.
Iran
Pakistan
then Saudi Arabia.
but Iran first.
Posted by: A_Plague_on_Both_Houses at June 25, 2007 11:43 AM
"His pronouncement came after an 11-year-old girl died while undergoing the procedure at a private medical clinic in southern Egypt."
Any person who would do this to any girl or woman has no business calling him/herself a doctor. That FGM is being performed in medical clinics is beyond belief - and the victims are still dying !
Posted by: ImNoDhimmi at June 25, 2007 12:25 PM
Greetings:
But what about "honor" female genital mutilations?
Posted by: 11B40 at June 25, 2007 12:42 PM
We won't attack Iran, and especially Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have rigged up explosives that if we, or anyone attacks, their oil fields will go kaboom.
What we fear is the loss of oil. We haven't done anything to get off of oil, but we know that we have a problem with getting the oil because most of it resides in lands that are hostile. And our getting oil is getting more difficult due to less of it being found that is easy to extract. Some methods, are harder and take more energy to extract it than it is worth. the reason why no new processing plants are being built - the companies don't want to put so much money into something that is actually decreasing in volume. The oil production is lessoning in many countries while demand is increasing.
There might be big reserves out there - maybe in all that tundra called Russia, or under all that land called china - but they have to find it. I don't know what the story is there. And the oil under the ocean is having its own problems with being extracted. Like I said I don't know the full story here, but we won't attack the countries that are producing oil, if we can avoid it. And it has nothing to do with Bush, for all you Bush haters. The Democrats won't do it either if they can help it.
Yes, we need to get off of our oil dependence, and giving up driving is not the answer. The auto companies have to give us an alternative. Our cities are built around a moving population - and by moving, I mean, mobile. You might be lucky to be next to all the conveniences - but most people are not.
We actually need to move ourselves too, but being a bicyclist society will not solve our problems and unfortunately, I don't see that happening. I see some bicycling, but not the majority of people doing this. The masses of people are not driven by self-sacrifice, individuals are, but not the masses. Go take a look at the number of vehicles with one person in them during rush hours - or at anytime. A ton or two of vehicle to carry one person!
Posted by: R_not at June 25, 2007 1:00 PM
Robert,
Gomaa is probably just upset by the continuous scorn he receives from you, with respect to his status as a "moderate", by D'Souza's estimation.
He is just trying to save face.
Posted by: awake at June 25, 2007 2:10 PM
Mubarak, in order to save Islam from further ridicule, has probably made him an offer he can't refuse. Besides, lying about Islam is okay; lying in "war" is one of the three possible situations in which lying by Muslims is not merely excused, but religiously sanctioned. Jihad is a "war," and if one must lie in order to avoid handing one's enemies a weapon that can weaken Islam, why then -- say whatever it takes. Allah will understand.
Posted by: Hugh at June 25, 2007 3:21 PM
Isn't it funny how "god" made so many mistakes on the human body he made? You must hack off the sensitive bits, and hair? Oh for heaven's sake cover that up with a Hefty Bag...face, who needs a face...only your husband needs to see that. Makes no sense.
Posted by: interestinconundrum at June 25, 2007 4:00 PM
Not only the woman, but also allah's mistake in animals such as a pig and a dog. Now, I would rather spend time with them than a muslim who feels that, since I am a woman, is less than them. When in fact, I feel that they are less than the dog and pig that I would prefer to be with. The dog and pig are being what they are - the muslims strive to be less than them.
Posted by: R_not at June 25, 2007 4:04 PM
Good muslims do what their imam tell them to, eg they go out and riot after Friday prayers if told to do so.
The imams have had 1400 years to ban/fatwaise female castration and pride killings. They've obviously never bothered to do so. Any moves on their part now are due in part to the spotlight the West is shining on them. Homosexuality only started to be condemned in islamic countries when Islam began to lose face because the West criticised its prevalence in their lands in 19th century.
Posted by: Silvester at June 25, 2007 6:32 PM
Good muslims do what their imam tell them to, eg they go out and riot after Friday prayers if told to do so.
The imams have had 1400 years to ban/fatwaise female castration and pride killings. They've obviously never bothered to do so. Any moves on their part now are due in part to the spotlight the West is shining on them. Homosexuality only started to be condemned in islamic countries when Islam began to lose face because the West criticised its prevalence in their lands in 19th century.
Posted by: Silvester at June 25, 2007 6:33 PM
"Good muslims do what their imam tell them to, eg they go out and riot after Friday prayers if told to do so."
You got it and one of the primary duties of an imam is to encourage jihad. Imams, and other clerics, should be looked at as 'officers' of the terrorist army.
at June 25, 2007 7:58 PM
It ain't female circumscision; it's clitorodectomy. What they do to these pubescent girls equates to lopping off an adolescent boy's penis, and that ain't circumcision. Duh.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at June 25, 2007 8:30 PM
"Ali Gomaa.....now says that female genital mutilation is wrong, apparently reversing the Shafi'i school's traditional judgment that it is obligatory (cf. 'Umdat al-Salik e4.3). It will be interesting to see what actions, if any, he takes in order to back up this ruling."
I am very interested in understanding how this sort of thing works in the modern Muslim world. Does Ali Gomaa's ruling enter into some new and updated manual of Shafi'i law which supercedes Umdat al Salik? Does this mean that the gates of ijtihad are now re-opended where at least Shafi' law is concerned such that the likes of Ali Gomaa can write new laws? Will enough Muslims honor his authority to rewrite traditional Shafi'i law?
Basically, how does all this work in the modern world? Who actually has the authority to rewrite traditional Islamic law with the kind of authority that will carry permanent weight, in the juridical sense, among all the 8 major schools, in the modern world?
These are the kinds of things that I for one would really like to understand. Because if its just a simple matter of a few prominent modern jurists "rewriting the books" as it were, that would seem to be a very welcome development. Do they have the authority though in such a decentralized system to do so, in such a way as to make such laws binding on the vast majority of Muslims?
Posted by: Caroline at June 25, 2007 10:34 PM
"The harmful tradition of circumcision that is practised in egypt in our era is forbidden when camels fly." mufti ali gomaa was quoted as saying. "Snakes slither and suckers suck." Mustang65 was quoted as saying.
Posted by: mustang65 at June 26, 2007 2:34 AM
Text
"The harmful tradition of circumcision that is practised in Egypt in our era is forbidden"
Translation (for the infidels)
Do it. It is sacred, it is holy, and the koran says so. But do it so the infidels do not know that it is happening, that it is a reality.
Posted by: arjun.sevak at June 26, 2007 6:15 AM
So arjun.sevak, you need to hide the sick things that you do from the rest of the world. What a dark and scary religion, sounds more like a cult.
Posted by: Isamisevil at June 26, 2007 12:23 PM
Sorry to sound so pessimistic, but this is just all lip service to the West. Who is going to enforce this? It won't stop any mutilations. Beating Copts and setting fire to churches is also illegal in Egypt. Who is stopping that? When I see fathers and mothers going to jail for child endangerment/torture I'll say there is some credibility to this.
Posted by: never_submit at June 26, 2007 3:13 PM
"So arjun.sevak, you need to hide the sick things that you do from the rest of the world. What a dark and scary religion, sounds more like a cult.
Posted by: Isamisevil"
What I wanted to convey was that the mullahs always make statements that have 2 meanings, one meaning for the ummah, and another for the infidels (us).
Yes, islam is not a religion, it is a death cult.
Posted by: arjun.sevak at June 27, 2007 1:36 AM
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