Collounsbury’s point is that this is not a normative universal feature of Islam, but rather a regional cultural practice that has taken on a religious veneer in many areas where it is practiced.
In areas where it is practiced it actually tends not to be perculiar to a particular religion - Egyptian Coptic Christians practice both male and female circumcision, same as their Muslim neighbors. So do Christian Ethiopians. Similarly in Nigeria:
*Clitoridectomy and excision are most widely practised in southwest Nigeria, where the majority population is Christian, and infibulation in the northwest, where the majority population is Muslim, they said.
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While Collounsbury did neglect to mention Malaysia and Singapore ( which, however, as noted in the above article practice a far less invasive version than that found in Africa ), your own cite notes that it is not religious in origin, but cultural. Per your own cite:
*But the custom has no religious basis and there are no guidelines - except that it should not bring harm to believers, said Zhulkeflee Haji Ismail, manager of Singapore’s Islamic Scholars and Religious Teachers Association. *
Also, Egypt excluded, you generally don’t find the widespread practice female circumcision in the Middle East.
I did say ‘popular’, so you’re saying it happens, but it isn’t ‘popular’. The less extremes ones are actually more popular. People even still perform circumsicions culturally in America on boys and girls…of course more commonly boys in all religions that it is common in, and on girls on the cultural level where it is still believed girls are more marriageable if they have some form of circumcision.
I also was talking more along the cultural lines since the post I was referring to was about ‘dryness’, I’m sure that’s cultural and not religious as well.
My main point was that it seems in many cultures that anything to do with pain for woman seems preferable to the men including the dryness example, and my more extreme example. They are also not just preferable, but are also labelled ‘hygenic’.
I do generalize a lot, so I expect replies, but it’s generalizing, not ignorance. I will try to be more ‘precise’
…And I neglected to mention Indonesia or at least parts of it.
Also, Yemen, where it is a minority practice ( maybe 1/4 of the populace ) but more widespread in coastal districts ( the farther inland, the more rare it gets ), , probably reflecting the at times extensive cultural exchange between Yemen and the Horn.
Drabble: Ah, ‘popular’.
Well insomuch as it is practiced in a few of the more densely populated Muslim countries, I suppose one could argue that technically that is correct. Maybe.
But it is rather imprecise ( and, I’d argue, misleading ) to say “it is popular with Muslims” when it is not really a feature of the religion, except locally and via cultural accretion.
Wonderful, another member of the illogical response club.
Muslim is not a term opposite of Africa. Your response, besides being grammatically defective is illogical. Illogical on two points (a) I did not indicate the practice is not performed, what I indicated was it is not a Muslim practice per se, but something derived from North East Africa by all accounts. (b) the opposition btw Africa and Muslim is just plain nonesensical.
Some. Egypt, often included in North Africa, and as Tamerlane noted, some in Yemen, likely Horn of Africa derived populations/cultural influence. For the vast bulk of the Arab Muslim world it is entirely unknown, where it is practiced, the practice is both Xian and Muslim.
To indicate the practice is popular with Muslims when in fact the majority of the Muslim world does not practice this is gross and ignorant distortion.
A lot of followers of the two other monotheist religions seem not to know that the Qu’ran (spelling?) advocates that a woman’s worth is as much as a man’s. Unlike the Old and/or New testament.
Yes, there are two versions of the story of Creation, the first states that man and woman are equal, the second that the woman is subordinate to man.
the latter had/has been widely accepted as the one to implement.
In Islam culture, women are heavily protected, as the family honour depends on their chastity.
The idea itself is not a strange one, in Athens, during the Roman Empire, women did not walk the streets unaccompanied. If they did, then that meant that they were “working women”.
It is a theme that keeps on occuring in religion, though, and it’s one that makes me sad:
Women are either depicted as saints, or near saints, or as whores.
There does not seem to be a middle ground.
Well, that is not quite true. On a number of points Quranic injunctions would have women’s views and worth as somewhat less than a man’s. Benchmarked against then extent and dominent Abrahamic and regional views on the worth of women, ability to own property and the like, the Quranic is a damn sight better, but doesn’t really reach equal worth.
Of course the added problem is that what the Quran granted, somehow traditions tended to chip away at.
I might add from a purely logical view, in tribal contexts, given issues of resource distribution, deep concern with making sure baby X really is the child of X1 and Y1 of the tribe makes sense.
To widen this discussion, there is considerable variation in how people choose to carry out the veiling and other practices of modesty. Walking down the street here, you’ll see that some women wear the hijab only, and you see them wearing it with jeans and long-sleeve shirts. Some wear a coat over their regular clothes (it’s not called a coat; the name escapes me; it looks like a well-tailored choir robe). Some women only wear hijab which are plain (black, navy, or grey); others wear hijab with prints and patterns. There is obviously variation in how this is to be done; it’s foolhardy to lump all muslim women together.
Nice, intervening, I guess newbies are going to assualted on everything they say, their main points ignored, and aren’t welcome. Thanks.
The practice of female circumcision is POPULAR, maybe not the extreme one I posted…but female circumcision is POPULAR and common and done to almost every muslim/islamic female.
I never said it was a religious thing, I was referring to the ‘dryness’ which also isn’t a religious thing.
Before jumping down someone’s throat and going on and on and on, why don’t you see the difference between calling something religious (which I didn’t) and see that I was referring to the dryness.
But that’s the thing…it’s not common, and not done to almost every Muslim woman, and this is what Tamerlane and Collunsbury have been trying to tell you.
Please don’t think that people are being overly harsh on you because you’re new. It’s not like that at all. You just made a statement that isn’t supported by the facts. There’s nothing wrong with that, particularly…you were just incorrect. It happens to everybody.
And it happens in the states/canada, britain, etc to muslim women. They will even take the girls back to ‘the old country’ where they’re from and get it done.
