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Islamic Conf. Urges End to Female Circumcision
 Ministers, politicians and scholars from almost 50 Muslim states have gathered for two days in the Moroccan capital for the first Islamic childhood conference, calling for protecting children from abuse, exploitation and harmful traditions, basically the abhorrent female circumcision.
| Most of us outside the Muslim world regard slicing little girls' public lips off as something other than just a quaint local custom. I put it in the same category as throwing acid on women who reject their suitors, myself. |
The first Islamic Conference of Ministers in Charge of Childhood put special emphasis in its final statement called the "Rabat Declaration" on female genital mutilation (FGM) and other harmful practices discriminating girls, underlining it is against Islam. Organised by the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (ISESCO), the declaration spared harsh criticism for FGM.
| As written, that looks like they didn't criticize it harshly, which doesn't surprise me. I'd have used words like "a stench and an abomination," "loathesome in the sight of God," and probably "burn in the lowest reaches of hell for all eternity." But then, I'm not a diplomat, either. |
It called upon all Muslim states to "take the necessary measures to eliminate all forms of discrimination against girls and all harmful traditional or customary practices, such as child marriage and female genital mutilation."
 | Child marriage is another of those quaint local customs that sets me off. I guess I'm too culturally insensitive. |
Muslim scholars for decades have emphasised that there is no Islamic basis for the very harmful practice, which causes many deaths among young girls each year.
| Yet they keep lopping them off, don't they? |
Sheikh Youssef Al-Qaradwi asserted that the practice is by no means obligatory in Islam. Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Canada, said in another fatwa, that there is nothing in the Islamic sources, either the Qurâan or the Sunnah, to suggest that it is a prescribed ritual of initiation for women in Islam.
| There are the fatwahs, so all Muslims will now immediately cease doing terrible things to their daughters. Yep. I'm sure of it... |
Posted by: Fred 2005-11-24 |
