Female Genital Mutilation among Bohra Muslims - A report

 

I applaud the courage of Mr. Danish Ahmed for reporting this issue head on in his magazine Indian Muslim Observer. There is a lot that goes on in our societies, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, and Sikh or otherwise, in this instance a large number of Bohra Muslim Women are being genitally mutilated in secrecy, as it is an illegal practice within several cultures.

Even if one woman, Muslim or otherwise is deprived of her God given pleasures of life, it must be stopped. Standing up against oppression is one big aspect of being a Muslim.Injustice to anyone and particularly women will eat away the morality of the society from within. Oppression cannot go on for long. Every religion has been a medium to restore righteousness in the society, the guidance is universal including Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) who said, the least thing you can do against injustice is to speak up. Speaking up is the right thing to do.

Tasleem deserves the applauding, even though she has endured pain and suffering, she has decided to put an end to this. We need to join her efforts in putting an end to this misery. Certainly, a few men will ridicule it, but she will have her rewards from Allah and the Prophet for the doing the right thing, bringing justice to generations of women. May God bless her.

Warning: The pictures too graphic, especially the one with raw blade. Most of the pictures are from Africa to illustrate the point and perhaps due to the limited availability of such practices.

This is a horrendous practice that all of us must stop. I can hear a few Muslims, just a handful of Muslims in each Muslim gathering asking this to the Danish Ahmed.

1. Why did he not talk with the community first?
2. Why did he have to feed the right wingers with more to belittle Muslims?
3. Is there an empirical data to claim 90% of Bohra community practices this?

It is quite possible that His Highness Syedna Burhanuddin, the spiritual leader of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslims may not be aware of this practice happening right under his nose, just as CIA did not see Mubarak's exit or the seedlings for the protests in the Middle East, ISI and Pakistani Military did not know Osama Bin Laden was hiding right in their own backyard and Mossad has been wrong about Iran and other pronouncements.

Obviously the issue is simmering for a long time, but no one may have dared the establishment, and even possible that the protests were put down. As Muslims we need to give full support to this movement that is what makes us Muslims; to speak up and do everything possible to bring justice to every human in the society.

If we don’t fulfill our responsibility, the suffering will go on further, but it will affect us all of us. This is not a Bohra issue, nor the Muslim issue; it is the human rights issue. It’s not them, it is us, we are all in this together to create a better society for each one of us and it reflects and affects us all.

I do hope the Syedna will make a quick call to end this practice, if he has not already done. Please do the least thing you can do – sign the petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/hh-dr-syedna-ban-female-circumcision-ladkiyon-par-khatna

Here is a link to the full article: http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2011/11/female-genital-mutilation-among-bohra.html

By the way, the male circumcision among Jews and Muslims is not the same, it has a history of over 3000 years and it is not done secretly to be evil and further more it is professionally done to ensure the safety of the circumcised.  The following article was cited in cancelling the bill to ban circumcision in San Francisco and Santa Monica.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ghouse/circumcision-satire_b_872270.html

Mike Ghouse
Muslims together committed to cohesive and just societies
www.IslamTogetherFoundation.com