We refer to the article in FMT on female circumcision.
Wafiq, the International Women’s Alliance for Family Institution and Quality Education, wishes to clarify several facts concerning female circumcision (FC) which was recently discussed in the launching of the report on “The Status of Women’s Human Rights: 24 years of United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in Malaysia” by a group of women NGOs.
But first, it is refreshing to note that the panellists had used the term FC instead of female genitalia mutilation (FGM), the latter which in the past had misled United Nations CEDAW committee members into believing that Malaysia practices FGM. It must be stressed that there is a huge difference between FGM on one hand, and FC on the other under the Shafii school of Islamic jurisprudence.
Female circumcision has a religious basis
However, contrary to the statement by Sisters in Islam executive director Rozana Isa, that FC is nothing more than a cultural tradition, FC has a religious basis. The Fatwa Committee of the Malaysian National Council of Islamic Religious Affairs in 2009 stated that FC is mandatory. We would like to take this opportunity to enlighten readers that there are two views among Muslim scholars regarding FC: one view is that it is just as compulsory as male circumcision, and another view is that FC is “sunnah”, which means an act of worship that is encouraged in Islam, but not obligatory.
In Malaysia, FC has been religiously followed according to the Shafii school of law. Federal Territory Mufti Zulkifli Mohamad al-Bakri said “circumcision is mandatory for men and women”, and the argument that female circumcision is “unlawful in Islam” is arguable. Most states follow the Shafii school of law on female circumcision. The Perlis Fatwa Committee, in 2017, following the second view, decreed that circumcision is obligatory for men and sunnah for women.
Both views are based on narratives in the hadith. One narrative relates that Caliph Uthman ibn Affan had invited an old woman who was a slave with other young women from Rome to accept Islam. When the old woman and a young girl accepted Islam, Uthman had ordered for them to be “circumcised” and “purified”.
This narrative was graded “daif” or weak.
Another narrative is of a woman who performed circumcision in Madinah. It is said that Prophet Muhammad had told her: “Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband.” This narrative was graded “sahih” or sound by al-Albani, and the hadith has been reported in Sunan Abi Dawud, Book 42, Hadith 5251.
Two other narratives are almost similar — it was narrated that Prophet Muhammad had said: “Do not cut off too much as it is a source of enjoyment for the woman and more likeable to her husband”, and “When you circumcise, you must not cut off too much as it is a source of loveliness of the face and more enjoyable for the husband”.
It can be seen from the narratives that Prophet Muhammad did not forbid female circumcision, but encouraged it as commendable acts in religion.
According to the Hanafi school of law, female circumcision is permissible, but not a “sunnah”. The Maliki school of law considers it a “preferred act” (mandub). The Shafii school of law says circumcision is an obligation for both men and women. This is the official ruling.
The Quran, however, does not condemn female circumcision as long as it does not compromise the health of the female.
Contemporary Muslim scholar Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi said: “It must be ascertained that there is no mutilation by those who handle the affairs of their daughters in the manner that comes from the hadith. It cannot be labelled as a form of crime as committed in the 21st century, except in cases that violate the agreed rules in shariah, excessive cutting, and controlled by ignorant people from the midwives and beyond … and it should not use the medicines that might barren the child.”
Female circumcision and medical complications
We also welcome the views of the panellists that states FC as practised in Malaysia is no longer seen as a harmful practice. This is in agreement with the data from the health ministry which reported in 2015 that as many as 83-85% of Muslim babies attending the government clinic had reportedly been circumcised while 15-17% of Muslim babies did not undergo circumcision. All Muslim babies who had been circumcised did not report any complications.
As to the question of should there be scientifically proven medical benefits to validate religious practices, it must be emphasised that the rulings of Islam – i.e. the obligation to perform prayer, fasting and circumcision, just to mention a few – were ordained to Muslims 1,400 years ago as part of our faith. We had never known the medical benefits of many of these practices before modern science came, yet they were religiously observed by the faithful. Thus, medical benefits are not the pre-requisite to maintain a religious practice.
Rather, it is the presence of medical harm that shows how Islamic rulings may be relaxed based on Maqasid Shariah (the purpose of Shariah). A severely diabetic patient, for example, does not have to fast, if by doing so, he may succumb to hypoglycaemia.
Female circumcision as a harmful ideology
We respectfully disagree with Mary Shanthi Dairiam, the founding director of International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific (IWRAW), who claimed that FC perpetuates a “harmful ideology” that women are not equal to men. There is simply no evidence to back this up.
A 2012 study conducted by Dr Maznah Dahlui, an associate professor at the University of Malaya’s Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, found that 93% of Muslim women surveyed had been circumcised. The fact that this practice is normally done in private by the family when a child is at a very young age that she is unlikely to remember it, and the fact that FC is hardly a subject one discusses openly, there is simply no correlation to show the practice results in a harmful ideology. This is, of course, in contrast to some cultural practices which have been banned in African countries as the much older girls are subject to surgery that technically suture their labia minora or labia majora as a form of FGM.
The claim that FC is a harmful ideology needs to be substantiated because women in Malaysia have progressed all these years while practising FC. In 2015, in the Millennium Development Goal Index (MDG), a five-year assessment tool, the United Nation’s praised Malaysia for our women’s achievements where women had surpassed men in both enrollment and completion of their primary and secondary education, more than 95%. Almost 70% of students who enrolled in our universities are females.
In the 69th session of CEDAW in 2018, Naéla Gabr from Egypt and Ismat Jahan from Bangladesh stated that Malaysia should ban FC, following their countries footsteps. Local women’s NGOs have urged Malaysia to follow suit.
We need to ask ourselves what is considered as a tangible measure of success for women? Thus, we compared the Global Gender Gap Report for 2017. The Global Gender Gap report benchmarks 144 countries on their progress towards gender parity across four thematic dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. In women’s health and survival, Malaysia was ranked 53, with Egypt at 99 and Bangladesh at 125. For educational attainment, we were at 77, Egypt at 104, and Bangladesh at 111. For economic participation, we were at 87, Bangladesh 129 and Egypt at 135. Bangladesh scored highly in political empowerment compared with us because it has a woman as a prime minister. So does banning of FC play any role in women’s progress?
Having said that, we truly believe that there is plenty of room for Muslim women to succeed but we call for a more objective analysis of an issue backed up by reliable and validated data, rather than assumptions based on intuition which will not help in effective policymaking.
Associate Professor Dr Rafidah Hanim Mokhtar is President and Dr Nur Saadah Khair is Exco Member of The International Women’s Alliance for Family Institution and Quality Education.
The views of the writers do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.