When Cutting is not Cutting

or
 Beware the Man in the Middle:
 A Response to Afroz Ali on Female Genital Mutilation


    Apparently not content with the apologetics effort required to damage control regarding the debate about the legal status of necrophilia and child marriage in Egypt, the Islamic educational site Seekers Guidance decided to publish an article marking their entry into the debate over Female Genital Mutilation. Afroz Ali laments the prejudiced definition of circumcision now current in the English language and reflected in the Oxford Dictionary Online. The funny thing about an article that contains so much whining about definitions (boohoo, the English language is prejudiced!) is that he provides an Islamic definition of female circumcision as ‘removing the extra skin on the prepuce,’ while apparently unaware of the fact that this begs the question of who gets to define what amount IS extra. Certainly, it’s not the girls subjected to this practice. Presumably, the definition of ‘cutting’ is prejudiced because he claims that ‘clitoral cutting’ is prohibited while at the same time maintaining that surgically removing a sizeable chunk of the clitoris (which euphemizes as the ‘extra skin’ is allowed. Perhaps he has in mind a transporter ala Star Trek that will beam away the offending flesh with nary an incision, but by any meaningful definition of the English word ‘cut’, in female circumcision the clitoris and labia are cut. The arabic verb used in the texts of Islamic law in descriptions of this practice is qaTa3a which, as any first year student of Arabic will tell you, means ‘he cut.’

     Besides educating us in lexicography, Afroz Ali makes sweeping claims about the ignorance of western academics and activists in regard to this practice. Unfortunately, he fails to substantiate these claims other than by a single quote disputing the authenticity of a hadith. I would hope that one who is claiming that scientists in several fields (sociology, anthropology, etc.) would be at least obliging enough to provide evidence of the sort that is acceptable in the fields he is criticizing: field reports, statistical analyses, etc. But no, we just get a single quote. And this is not surprising. His claim that those perfidious westerners are misrepresenting the Islamic opinion is, in essence, a claim that HIS view, the view of the scholars he chooses to follow, is the correct one. I don’t think it should be surprising that social scientists are not going to be impressed by these claims; the same claim is made by every sect and schismatic group. The social scientists and the activists are concerned with actually existing practices and the ideological and cultural structures that legitimate them (the latter with the intention of preventing unnecessary suffering/human rights violations), not with which group best approximates the ever shifting mirage of ‘true Islam.’ The quotes from eminent muslim jurists that Ali uses to substantiate his claims illustrate this concept all too well: they demonstrate that there are a variety of positions concerning permissibility (or obligation) of the practice, the amount that may be cut, and the timing of the procedure in the lifetime of the girl. Concerning the latter pont, muslim definitions of maturity notwithstanding, in most legal systems the age of majority is well beyond the onset of puberty, implying that, for example, a 12 year old girl cannot be reasonably construed to have consented to this procedure, the decision instead being that of the parents. And his wonderful paean in the defense of the victims of medical malpractice forgets the fact that the victims of botched labioplasties have recourse to the American (or Canadian or Australian) legal system, something which is denied to the victims of FGM in many other countries.


     Perhaps his most outrageous claim is that “currently the blazing fire of crime against women is largely fueled by academics and activists themselves.” He provides no justification for this statement, other than a vague Emma Goldman-esque platitude about the importance of being “arm[ed] themselves with unbiased and accurate facts.” I suppose this is intended as a critique of the scourge of ‘humanitarian militarism’ which justified the invasion of Libya and intervention in the Kosovo conflict (as well as providing a tertiary justification for the Afghan and Iraq wars). It falls rather flat, however. To my knowledge, no one has justified a war on the grounds of stopping FGM. Even Joseph Kony, who gets accused of just about everything else, hasn’t been accused of that. Perhaps in the next viral video. He claims that equating ‘legal circumcision’ with FGM “is ruining the lives of innocent women and children” while providing absolutely no evidence for this. In response to this, I quote the Qur’an, “Bring your proof if you are truthful.” Given that surgery to repair dysfunction will, in all likelihood, remain legal, what harm would there be in banning the cultural/religious practice besides missing out on some divine brownie points which most do not avail themselves of in any case. What is that compared to the massive suffering that would prevented by a wholesale ban? The devil is always in the details; as Ali himself has unwittingly shown, there is a great deal of divergence in what is considered normative Islamic practice. Any legal approach which attempts to parse out all of these nuances (how much is ‘extra,’ when to cut, etc.) is going to allow a great deal of unnecessary suffering to occur. Why risk it? 


    The commentator on Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani’s Risalah, Shaykh Saalih Abdus Samee al-Azhari, provides us with another description of islamic female circumcision in line with that quoted by Ali. He tells us "[Circumcision [literally: reduction] in women] And it is cutting the protuberance at the top of the vulva that is like the comb of the rooster. [is honourable] ... with the meaning that it is desirable" (The brackets indicate the text of the Risalah being commented upon). Quite colourful. In regards to the quote from the Reliance, Keller’s translation is in fact a narration of a ruling derived from his own teachers,as the original arabic text does not mention the ‘prepuce’ but only the clitoris. But this only highlights the point which Ali himself mentions earlier in the paper, which is that religious leaders take differing views both on the practice of FGM as a whole and on what practices, if any, in that spectrum are religiously acceptable. Frankly, it’s a crap shoot for the women, their fate determined by capriciousness of geography. Will they be born in an area that follows a more liberal interpretation of what is considered ‘extra’ or will they be fortunate enough to be born/raised in an area with broad minded clerics like Ali? Although, given how large a rooster’s crest can be, perhaps he is not as broad minded as it appears (or maybe he hasn’t spent a lot of time on the farm).


     While the following is not a strictly rational argument against what he has written, it does illustrate the fact that religion often has a deleterious effect on the morality of its more intelligent practitioners in that it drives them to defend actions they would themselves likely condemn absent a religious imperative to do so. My question, to anyone who reads Ali’s article and agrees with it, is: When are you going to take your daughters (or, in the case of women, yourselves) to have this procedure done? If you aren’t going to have it done, why? And be honest. I mean, according to Ali, this is an honorable practice and, as we both have mentioned, some schools of thought rank it even higher than that. What is your justification for missing out on the blessings associated with this practice?


     In summary, this article has something of a farcical character. I can imagine a follow up article arguing against the Mormon practice of polygyny by emphasizing Islamic teachings like ‘four is enough’ and ‘a house to each.’ It would utterly miss the point in a manner which would be comic if not for the suffering such practices cause. It is akin to the misguided attempts of some apologists/reformers to interpret the ‘beating’ verse in Suratun Nisaa’ as referring only to a ceremonial tapping with a toothbrush (well, stick). While there is no doubt that there is evidence supporting such an interpretation, there is also evidence for more ominous interpretations. Perhaps more to the point, the whole exercise serves to legitimate a patriarchal social structure in which women can never be fully autonomous even as it attempts to prevent some of the harm that inevitably follows from such a structure. The end result is the propagation of a system of familial and societal relations that will cause all the more harm because it possesses a patina of restraint and reasonableness. Instead of feeling ashamed for ceremonially humiliating his wife, a man can feel good that he restrained himself from doing worse and overstepping the bounds of patriarchal prerogatives. One shudders to think of the net suffering caused the legalization of any of these practices in the name of a false tolerance.