The British authorities are caught in an insuperable contradiction. They strike Dr. Ali Mao-Aweys from the medical register, while pretending that he is a singular case, and that the vast majority of Muslims in the U.K. reject this barbaric practice. That may be, but it is without any doubt much more widespread than they think, or would like to admit, because of its justification in Islamic law. And so they welcome Muslims into the country in large numbers, try to position London as a global capital of Islamic finance, and ban opponents of jihad terror like Pamela Geller and me from the country, without realizing that all this encouragement of the growth of Islam in Britain is without any doubt going to result also in the growth of female genital mutilation in the country.
Muhammad is said to have justified the cutting of women’s genitals: “A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina. The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said to her: Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband.” (Sunan Abu Dawud 41.5251)
The problem with this is that the distinction between cutting and cutting severely is subjective. Also, some Islamic authorities say that this is a weak hadith. That’s wonderful. I hope they manage to convince every Muslim authority in the world that this is the case. Unfortunately, many remain misunderstanders of Islam. A few examples:
Gambia: “Alhaji Abdoulie Fatty, the Imam of State House Mosque has rebuted [sic] claims published on 1st June edition of the Daily observer, entitled ‘Female Genital Cutting Unislamic’ as utter rubbish.” — Gambia’s Daily Observer, June 6, 2007
Egypt: “Omayma Idris, a Cairo-based gynaecologist, says that more than 90 percent of all married Egyptians today are thought to have undergone mutilation. After the prohibition, she says, one could see a decline, ‘but since the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists are in power in Egypt, the numbers are on the rise again; they encourage families to do it again.’…Salafists and representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood – the political home of Egypt’s President Mohamed Mursi – want to see female genital mutilation legalized again.” — Deutsche Welle, November 23, 2012
The late Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi of Egypt’s venerable Al-Azhar University once called circumcision “a laudable practice that did honor to women.”
Indonesia: “The the Muslim intellectual Sumanto Al Qurtuby says the faction that supports tetesan [female genital mutilation] is linked to the Salafi and Wahhabi community, which together with other fundamentalist groups are concentrated in Bandung and Aceh. They believe that circumcision is ‘morally’ encouraged by Sharia, or Islamic law, and reiterated in the hadith, in anecdotes related to the life of the Prophet Muhammad.” — Asia News, December 7, 2012
Australia: “Islamic law permits by definition, by prophetic statement and by practice female circumcision” — Australian Imam Afroz Ali, The Australian, December 24, 2012
There is also justification for the practice in Islamic law:
“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 bazr ‘clitoris’ [this is called khufaadh ‘female circumcision’]).” — ‘Umdat al-Salik e4.3, translated by Mark Durie, The Third Choice, p. 64
“Birmingham doctor struck off for helping to arrange FGM,” ITV.com, May 30, 2014:
A doctor with a practice in Birmingham has been struck off the medical register after he was found by a medical malpractice tribunal to have told an undercover reporter how to arrange female genital mutilation abroad for her two nieces.
FGM involves the partial removal of a girl’s genitals for non-medical reasons and is illegal in this country. It is also illegal to carry it out on a British citizen abroad.
The tribunal said Dr Ali Mao-Aweys’ misconduct was “at the extreme end of the spectrum of serious misconduct and was damaging to the public’s trust and confidence in the profession.”
It said he will be struck off the medical register with immediate effect. He has 28 days to appeal the decision.