Policy Statement These pages are firmly opposed to all infant circumcision, the Islamic variety no more or less than any other. The Muslim traditions of rationality and compassion will ultimately prevail over physical circumcision.
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"In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful!"
That invocation itself is a good argument not to circumcise: what could be less compassionate or merciful than to hold a boy down and cut off his most intimate part?
Muslims are the largest single group in the world who circumcise boys. An Intactivist website would be lacking if it said nothing against this variety of the practice. Ideally, opposition to Islamic circumcison must begin within Islam itself. The problem is where to start and how to proceed, when it is so entrenched, and the Islamic Intactivist movement is so tiny.
The Qur'an does not mention circumcision.
The main reason given for Islamic circumcision is (ritual) cleanliness. Against this it is hard to argue, except to point out that there is no more reason for the male genitalia to be ritually unclean than the female.
What has Islam got to say on female genital
mutilation?
Imam Baba Leigh On Child Rights in
Islam |
There is ample evidence on other pages that male circumcision itself (not just "the way it is done") is harmful to the health of the male child. It is painful, risky, often deforming, sexually diminishing and confers no health benefits.
Another reason given is "to be like Muhammad, who was 'born circumcised'". This can easily be refuted: if the Prophet was born without a foreskin (aposthetic), he was not circumcised, and that is the way to be like him.
Like Judaism, Islam forbids disfiguring the body:
"A body - be it alive or dead - should be respected. It cannot be disfigured at any stage," the Jamiatul Ulama, a council of Muslim theologians in Durban, said on Monday ... the Ulama's Ahmed Kathrada said: "We respect the human body in any form... our primary concern is that we cannot reduce it to disfigurement whether living or dead...".
"Durban dithers over frozen corpse disposal"
Independent On Line (South Africa)
October 1, 2002
It is hard to reconcile this respect with deliberately cutting any part off a baby's genitals.
He created everything in exact measure; He precisely designed everything
(25:2) He designed you, and designed you well. (40:64)
He created the heavens and the earth for a specific purpose, designed you
and perfected your design. (64:3)
He created man in the best design. (95:4)
[Satan said:] " I will mislead them, I will entice them, I will command them
to mark the ears of livestock, and I will command them to distort the
creation of GOD." (4:119) We did not leave anything out of this book. (6:38) The word of your lord is complete, in truth and justice. Nothing shall
abrogate His words. He is the Hearer, the Omniscient. (6:115)
Say, "Did you note how GOD sends down to you all kinds of provisions, then
you render some of them unlawful, and some lawful? Say, Did God give you
permission to do this? Or, do you fabricate lies and attribute them to God?"
(10:59) |
Edip Yüksel is a Kurdish-Turkish-American author and progressive activist who spent four years in Turkish prisons in the 1980's for his political writings and activities promoting an Islamic revolution in Turkey. He experienced a paradigm change in 1986 transforming him from a Sunni Muslim leader to a reformed Muslim or rational monotheist. He is the founder of 19.org and the Islamic Reform organization. His personal site is yuksel.org . His recent major work, Quran: a Reformist Translation, has been recently published by BrainbowPress, after being cancelled by Palgrave-Macmillan, which followed the fatwa of a "very established scholar."
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Hadith (hearsay narrations falsely attributed to Muhammad and his companions) and their collections have been the prime tool in distorting the progressive message of Islam. The reactionary forces, misogynistic ideas and practices, racism, tribalism, superstitions, despotism, and many other vices of the "days of ignorance" were resurrected and sneaked back into the minds and lives of Muslim communities after they were rejected by the early Muslims at great cost.
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Modifying God's creation for religious purposes is considered evil (See 4:119). Obviously, foreskin is not an abnormality in God's creation; it is the norm. Attempting to change such a creation through surgery to attain salvation is superstition (13:8; 25:2; 32:7; 40:64; 64:3; 82:6-9).
Sunni sources report many contradictory stories regarding circumcision. For instance, Ahmed B. Hanbal in his Musnad reports that Usman bin el-As refused to participate in a circumcision ceremony, since he considered circumcision an innovation. The Sunni historian Taberi reports that Caliph Abd al-Aziz rejected the suggestion of his advisors that the people of Khurasan should be circumcised; they were converted to "Islam" to avoid paying extra tax! Bukhari gives contradictory numbers for the year Abraham was allegedly circumcised, 80 versus 120. Bukhari who reports hearsay regarding the circumcision of converts and women, also reports that when Greeks and Abyssinians embraced islam they were not examined at all by Muhammad.
Hadith books, including Bukhari, contain numerous hadiths promoting circumcision including female circumcision, which is a torturous mutilation. However, hadith fabricators somehow forgot to fabricate hadiths about the circumcision of prominent figures during the time of Muhammad. More interestingly, since the practice of circumcision was adopted centuries later, they missed the opportunity to attribute this practice to Muhammad himself. Sunni scholars, therefore, came up with another so-called miracle: Muhammad was born circumcised. This would answer those who wondered about the absence of such an "important" record in the books of hadith and sunna.
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But depending on where they are, any campaigners against Islamic circumcision will have to proceed with extreme caution....
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The New York Times Death to Blasphemers: Islam's Grip on Pakistan
By BARRY BEARAK
But the topic came up during a morning physiology class. And the doctor talked briefly about seventh-century Arabia and its practices regarding circumcision and the removal of underarm hair. Some students found his remarks deeply offensive. "Only out of respect, because he was our teacher, did we not beat him to death on the spot," said Syed Bilal, 17.
Instead, they informed a group of powerful mullahs, who in turn filed a criminal complaint. Lest the matter be treated with insufficient urgency, these clerics dispatched a mob to the medical school and the police station, threatening to burn them down.
Precisely what Dr. Shaikh said in class last October is now a matter of mortal dispute, but he has been jailed ever since, awaiting trial and pondering the noose. Defending himself presents a conundrum. What can he safely say?
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Dr. Shaikh is charged under Provision 295-C of the law: the use of derogatory remarks about the holy Prophet Muhammad. Whether such an offense is intentional or not, the mandatory punishment is death.
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"My statements about the holy Prophet, peace be upon him, were made in his praise only, and these have now been twisted out of context," he said in measured phrases.
Moments later, pressed for specifics, he said: "My students asked me about the shaving of pubic and armpit hair, and I, in describing the glory of Allah's revelations, said that before the arrival of Islam, the Arabs did not have these practices. And they did not."
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Occasionally, Dr. Shaikh's digressions embarrassed his students; occasionally, they seemed impious. One irksome topic was how Muslims had come to practice circumcision and, for purposes of cleanliness, the removal of pubic and underarm hair. A question arose: Had Muhammad been circumcised before receiving God's revelations at age 40?
The ensuing discussion brought on no great ado, and Dr. Shaikh said he only remembers saying, "The Prophet's tribe did not practice circumcision."
But the offended students repeat a different version.
"He told us the Prophet hadn't been circumcised before," insisted Majid Lodhi, 22. "We asked, 'In what book is this knowledge?' And he said, 'I'm telling you the way it was, and if you have evidence to the contrary, bring in your proof.' "
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"No blasphemy has been committed in this case," proclaimed Maulana Abdul Hafiz. An elderly, stern-faced man, he, too, heads a chapter of the Movement for the Finality of the Prophet, his being in Bahawalnagar. "Blasphemy can be committed only if issues are raised about the period after the holy Prophet declared his prophethood. These issues are pre-prophethood."
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Circumcision is not universal among Muslims:
"Muslims, mostly ethnic Chams, make up about 0.5% of the population. The Chams consider themselves Muslims, but in practice they follow a localised adaptation of Islamic theology and law. Though Muslims usually pray five times a day, the Chams pray only on Fridays and celebrate Ramadan (a month of dawn to dusk fasting) for only three days. In addition their Islam based religious rituals co-exist with animism and the worship of Hindu deities. Circumcision is symbolically performed on boys at age 15, when a religious leader makes the gestures of circumcision with a wooden knife." - the Lonely Planet Guide to Vietnam, |
Link to video of an interview with Dr. Arif Bhimji, a Canadian Muslim Intactivist.
Related pages:
Correspondence from Muslims concerned about circumcision is welcome, and will be treated in strictest confidence.
Back to the Intactivism index page.