A Liberated Woman

At the risk of being called an irresponsible mother or worse an uninformed Muslim, I must admit that I have yet to send Sadia for circumcision (or as it is widely called in Malay, 'sunat'). You see, I attribute my lackadaisical manner to the conflicting information about having my female offspring circumcised.

From what I was told, it is not compulsory to put one's daughter under this excision procedure. And then, left and right, I heard other people's girls underwent circumcision as early as six months old. Am I missing an important piece of the information somewhere?

A casual inquiry with my well-informed uncle did confirm my belated instruction on this matter. It is NOT compulsory, but it is RECOMMENDED for hygienic purposes. However, when I rejoiced at the fact that it is not mandatory, he stressed on the cleanliness part and strongly urged that I send Sadia for the mini-op.

Since I have missed the boat of recommended timeframe for female newborn circumcision, I do not care for the stress and trauma that will accompany this circumcising surgery, knowing quite well how Sadia is like. I do need to sit down and talk to the specialist with regards to my concerns. Will Sadia need local or general anesthestic, considering how rambunctious she can be? How long will the circumcised part take to heal? Does she have to eat certain types of food to heal faster? Or any food to avoid during the healing period?

When I perused the Internet for any available literature on female circumcision or female genital cutting (FGC), as it is called by certain NGO-related quarters (frankly I prefer the former), circumcision in general - both male and female - is culturally ingrained as opposed to religiously required.

The practice of FGC predates both Islam and Christianity and there is no clear understanding of where or why the practice of FGC came into existence. Greek papyrus from 163 B.C. mentions girls in Egypt undergoing circumcision and it is widely accepted to have originated in Egypt and the Nile valley at the time of the Pharaohs.

In the case of widespread male circumcision in Islam, different schools of thought are at variance with respect to either it is recommended or obligatory. The proponents of male circumcision cited cleanliness and attaining purity from the germ-attracting prepuce, while the opponents maintained that the Holy Qur'an doesn't mention anything on circumcision. Yet, I tend to agree with the former as it is succinctly explained in and extracted from this article :

The point of view I find most convincing is that circumcision is obligatory only for males as suggested by the evidence used by those who deem it obligatory...but the obligation is waived in the case of a person who embraces Islam and feels afraid of the consequences of the procedure. In any case, it is not a condition for the validity of a person's profession of accepting the Islamic faith or the performance of his religious duties.

Surely those words buttressed the viewpoint that circumcision for females are not mandatory, as reinforced further in this write-up :

We must emphasize, however, that the correct stance is that there is no reliable text which directly encourages any form of circumcision, and thus the matter is left to other general texts which prohibit infliction of harm and those which encourage all things healthy and beneficial. One fundamental of Islamic jurisprudence is that what is not specifically prohibited is allowed, but still subject to other indirect texts. This makes for a great deal of tolerance in religion, but also allows it to cope with new issues brought by time.

All these talks about sunat brings to mind my own experience which happened quite late in my life compared to today's standard 'age'. I was about 9 or 10 years old and the ceremony took place in our long-standing humble abode in Shah Alam, which involved all of us four girls.

I distinctly remember being afraid of the whole hullabaloo - the intimidating-looking mak bidan (or traditional expert in genital cutting), the hush-hush talks by the adults, and ritual gadgetry (read: knife!). So
scared I was that I ended up locking myself in my room when my turn came next, thus causing an uproar for parents and relatives to coax me to come out!

For the life of me, I can't recall what they said to convince me to unlock the door, but I did finally come out and was ushered gingerly to the master bedroom where the bidan awaited. Probably I got sick and suffocated of being alone in my room. Or maybe, hunger got the best of me.

But I do remember it was a quick and (almost) painless procedure and I was quickly asked to mandi bunga (shower with the florally-infused water retained in the bathtub). They said I was probably 'hexed' (pukau in Malay) by the bidan as a form of 'local anesthetic' against the anticipated pain. Either I've blocked it altogether from memory or the far-fetched pukau story is true, I really can't remember the cutting part at all. But I ALWAYS remember the running away and locking myself part. :)

Before some uninitiated readers get all squeamish and judgmental about circumcision and connect it to the removal of essential organ(s), I have to contend that the only type of female circumcision that is considered 'commendable and permissible' in Islam is the Sunna circumcision, or Type 1 (see here for anatomical details) which is referred to, in colloquial terms, as hoodectomy.

This procedure is harmless and has no detrimental effects upon women, and is similar to the circumcision of men, as mentioned previously. Rather, some have even argued that there are some benefits to this procedure, as mentioned earlier, such as increase of sexual pleasure, prevention of unpleasant odors which result from foul secretions beneath the prepuce, and reduction of the incidence of urinary tract infections and infections affecting the reproductive system.

As mentioned in five paragraphs above with respect to causing unduly harm to the body, Islam is steadfast in its opposition to female genital mutilation that is prevalent in some African nations like Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia. This Type III circumcision is the most severe form of FGC and it is also called infibulation. Personally, I find it smothering and very sad to have one's genital organs being watched with an eagle eye by detached third parties. It's an infringement of one's privacy and rights to one's body.

A reverse infibulation can be performed to allow for sexual intercourse (often by the husband using a knife on the wedding night) or when undergoing labor, or by female relatives, whose responsibility it is to inspect the wound every few weeks and open it some more if necessary. During childbirth, the enlargement is too small to allow vaginal delivery, and so the infibulation must be opened completely and restored after delivery. Once again, the legs are tied together to allow the wound to heal, and the procedure is repeated for each subsequent act of intercourse or childbirth.

While the grounds that circumcision promotes cleanliness and enhances fertility are acceptable, the more exclusive reason for Type III method that acts as a proof of virginity is simply preposterous. Predictably, the expensive bridal price that correlates with these severely circumcised women also extends to other socio-economic aspects. Pain and suffering are inconsequential when compared to the prospect of monetary status and preserving family reputation.

Ironically, all these concerns about pre-marital sex and promiscuity that severe female circumcision affords has brought my attention to this eye-opening New York Times article last week.

Apparently, some Muslim women of Arab and African descent in France have opted for hymenoplasty - a restoration of hymen - as a last-ditch effort to 'certify their virginity' to their future in-laws or arranged-for-marriage husband. How twisted has our lives become!

Gynecologists say that in the past few years, more Muslim women are seeking certificates of virginity to provide proof to others. That in turn has created a demand among cosmetic surgeons for hymen replacements, which, if done properly, they say, will not be detected and will produce tell-tale vaginal bleeding on the wedding night. The service is widely advertised on the Internet; medical tourism packages are available to countries like Tunisia where it is less expensive.

A fiery debate on female virginity and all things feminist is now taking place in France as a result of a highly-publicised case involving a French Muslim groom who discovered that his wife was not a virgin on their wedding night.

Some feminists, lawyers and doctors warned that the court’s acceptance of the centrality of virginity in marriage would encourage more Frenchwomen from Arab and African Muslim backgrounds to have their hymens restored. But there is much debate about whether the procedure is an act of liberation or repression.

In some unfortunate cases where the hymen is accidentally torn (for instance, due to a horse-related incident), one young French Muslim woman bravely underwent the surgery so as to avoid the unnecessary stigma that is attached to promiscuous women and the bleak marriageable future ahead.

Others cited averting disaster with enraged parents and/or in-laws as the reasons behind their decision to restore their respective hymen. Whereas these Muslims' decision made has deep-seated religious and cultural roots, it was certainly both startling and amusing to know that some Americans undergo this procedure as a 'Valentine's gift' for their husbands!

Thus, on one hand, we have circumcision and the negative press that it attracts (my Malaysian girlfriend who studied in Columbia University received a deafening gasp from her classmates when she informed of her circumcision) and on the other hand, we have hymenoplasty and the life-saving role that it offers (albeit at the expense of feminists' outcry). Would we rather let our child be circumcised for health reasons or have her turn to hymenoplasty later in life just because she couldn't communicate with us?

Weighing the pros and cons on female circumcision and its cross-cultural import, I must say I have made my decision in accord with an Islamic perspective that 'encourages all things healthy and beneficial'.