Assalamu Alaikum Ya Nesan!

The definition of female circumcision in Islam, and in the English language began to diverge in the mid 90’s. Today they are no more the same. While Islam defines female circumcision as the removal of the prepuce skin of the genitals, the definition in the English language is far more general and often includes removal of the clitoris itself, and even the vaginal labia. Removal of the clitoris, and/or the vaginal labia is highly traumatic, unnecessary and should be avoided at all costs. This is why it is important to visit a Muslim doctor for circumcision who understands the Sunnah.

The difference between the two definitions of female circumcision stems from the work of feminists and purported women’s rights groups, mainly those of western culture and their offshoots. As Islam began to increase in popularity in the West during the pre 90’s much of the Western literati focused their attention on demonizing this foreign religion. It is at this time that female circumcision took center stage, and was made a point of criticism as a barbaric Islamic practice, meant to subjugate women by physically disabling her. Volumes of literature appeared with wild claims of suffering, and horror stories of religious devotion. However this attempt barely took off, as western medicine itself prescribed Islamic female circumcision (although they did not refer to it as Islamic), and many circumcised women in the West came forward to discredit these claims, thus banishing these feminists back to their dark desks of propaganda to re access their literary diarrhea.

By the mid 90’s these feminists, together with politicians and culturists who shared their aversion to Islam, changed the meaning of female circumcision in the English language, to include other procedures, namely Clitorectomy (removal of the clitoris), and Labiodectomy (removal of the vaginal labia). These later procedures are indeed traumatic and heinous, and after observing some obscure African tribes performing them, they concluded it was a reasonable inclusion to the definition of female circumcision, and more relevantly it validated the criticism of female circumcision they had painstakingly developed and published earlier. This attempt was also doomed to fail, as people began questioning as to why “male circumcision” only refers to removal of prepuce skin, while “female circumcision” refers to other things aside from the removal of the prepuce skin. If “female circumcision” is defined this way, what does the word “circumcision” on its own mean? This loss of symmetry between male and female circumcision once again sent the feminist literature on the subject into a tail spin, and saw a considerable loss in their credibility.

As the turn of the millennium approached, feminists and their associates have abandoned re defining the term “female circumcision” and instead replaced it with the term “female genital mutilation” or FGM for short. This term not only embodies their opinion of the procedure (i.e. it’s a mutilation and of no benefit), but also serves to distance it from the more wide spread and better understood term “circumcision”. In addition, this term also “muddies the water”, so that when they criticize FGM, it is difficult for a reader to determine which of the procedures they are actually talking about. Is it circumcision? Is it Clitorectomy? Or is it Labiodectomy? This inability to distinguish between the procedures often spares the writer of these articles criticism.

Critics of female circumcision today are well funded by big pharmaceutical companies. It is in the interest of these companies, that women of the middle, and lower economic classes purchase medication for bacterial and yeast infections periodically, so these companies may enjoy revenue. Protecting their market, by making sure misinformation makes the western and even international population of women, select their medications, over precautionary procedures is paramount, to keep their profits coming in, and therefore it isn’t un reasonable to think a large part of their marketing budget will be devoted to make sure women are well and truly weary of circumcision.

May Allah guard us from the misleader!