Note how carefully AFP dances around the fact that FGM is Islamic, as it is always Job One for the establishment media, in all stories involving Muslims, to make Islam look as good as possible. First, we hear that “FGM is not a cultural tradition to be defended — it is a form of gender-based violence that can kill,” which establishes at the outset that some people think it is a cultural tradition worth defending, while telling us that those people are wrong. The idea that it is a religious tradition doesn’t even come in for a mention until farther down in the article, when we are told that “former Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh, now in exile, outlawed FGM in 2015, branding it outdated and not a requirement of Islam.” Great, but “in July 2024, lawmakers revisited the matter, upholding the 2015 law despite pressure from religious traditionalists.”
So AFP tells us, without telling us, that some traditionalist Muslims consider female genital mutilation to be part of the Islamic faith. This is the main reason why it is still prevalent in many areas today, but the establishment media does its best to obfuscate any connection between FGM and Islam.
“It is a religious thing. Do you want to change religion?” said one Egyptian in response to a campaign to eradicate female genital mutilation. “You only listen to what the West is saying.”
The establishment media ignores the fact that FGM is mandated in Islamic law: “Circumcision is obligatory (for every male and female) (by cutting off the piece of skin on the glans of the penis of the male, but circumcision of the female is by cutting out the bazr ‘clitoris’ [this is called khufaadh ‘female circumcision’]).” — Umdat al-Salik e4.3, translated by Mark Durie, The Third Choice, p. 64
Why is it obligatory? Because Muhammad is held to have said so: “Abu al- Malih ibn Usama’s father relates that the Prophet said: ‘Circumcision is a law for men and a preservation of honour for women.’” — Ahmad Ibn Hanbal 5:75
“Narrated Umm Atiyyah al-Ansariyyah: A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said to her: ‘Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband.’” — Abu Dawud 41:5251
That hadith is classified as weak, but this one is classified as sahih (reliable): “Aishah narrated: ‘When the circumcised meets the circumcised, then indeed Ghusl is required. Myself and Allah’s Messenger did that, so we performed Ghusl.’” — Jami` at-Tirmidhi 108
If Muhammad had the genitals of his favorite wife, Aisha, mutilated, that is a strong endorsement of the practice from the man who is an “excellent example” (Qur’an 33:21) for Muslims.
Why does it matter whether or not FGM is Islamic? Because the practice will never be eradicated if its root causes are not confronted. As long as those Muslims continue to believe that Allah and Muhammad want it done, for some that will override all other considerations, in the United States and everywhere else.
“Gambia baby death heightens alarm over female genital mutilation,” AFP, August 12, 2025:
Rights activists in The Gambia are calling for justice after a one-month-old baby’s death was linked to female genital mutilation, a widely practised but illegal procedure up for review before the country’s Supreme Court.
The Gambia has one of the highest rates of FGM in the world, with 73 percent of women and girls aged 15 to 49 having undergone the procedure, according to 2024 figures from UNICEF.
The baby girl was pronounced dead upon arrival at a hospital in the capital Banjul after being “allegedly subjected to circumcision” and developing severe bleeding, The Gambia Police Force said in a statement Sunday.
The death has sparked outrage among women’s rights defenders working to combat the deeply rooted cultural and religious practice that they say is a harmful violation against women and girls.
“FGM is not a cultural tradition to be defended — it is a form of gender-based violence that can kill,” Santana Simiyu, a human rights lawyer with rights group Equality Now, said in a statement sent to AFP Tuesday.
Two women allegedly involved in the case are in custody, police said, as an investigation is carried out in the western town of Wellingara, where the incident occurred.
Researchers at Britain’s University of Birmingham estimated in a study published in 2023 that approximately 44,320 girls and young women die each year due to FGM in the countries where it is practised.
Former Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh, now in exile, outlawed FGM in 2015, branding it outdated and not a requirement of Islam.
Parliament later that year adopted the first law specifically banning the practice, which is now punishable by up to three years in prison but is rarely enforced.
In July 2024, lawmakers revisited the matter, upholding the 2015 law despite pressure from religious traditionalists.
But the ban was immediately challenged before the Gambian Supreme Court, where the petition remains pending….
Troybeam says
Stripping a woman of her sexuality and identity.
Not only is that bad when it happens when all her life being sewn up leaving only a small opening for urine and period and period flow.
Her wedding night, the horror and pain she must feel because she cannot under an operation to reopen what was closed and kept closed for eons, women develop medical problems after such attempts to intercourse.
Fear of not being a virgin is why surgery is not allowed.
Article info with link:
1400 plus years of this and women still allow their daughters to under go this procedure & yes where Islam is in the world there are parties that Muslim women hold, bring old women from home nation to do this nasty procedure on their daughters. OB/GYN’S know zip about this or how to correct the damage.
Female genital cutting (also commonly referred to as either “female circumcision” or “female genital mutilation”) refers to “all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons” (4). Such practices are common in traditional cultures throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa. The World Health Organization classifies these cutting procedures into four main groups (4). Type I genital cutting consists of partial or total removal of the clitoris and/or the prepuce (clitoridectomy). Type II procedures involve partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora (excision). The most extensive mutilation (Type III or “infibulations”) narrows of the vaginal orifice and creates a covering seal by cutting and appositioning the labia minora and/or the labia majora, often involving excision of the clitoris as well. Type IV (miscellaneous operations) include all other harmful genital procedures carried out for non-medical purposes, such as pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterization.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3637918/
gravenimage says
Yes–besides everythng else, Islam turns even otherwise gentle husbands into violent thugs who have to brutalize their brides on their wedding nghts.
Bexarkat says
Now is it clear why Linda Sarsour, ilhan Omar, and Rashinda Tlaib are so miserable.
BTeboe says
Islam just really hates women. Goats have more rights. They are considered vaginas on a leash and a man can own four if he can treat them all fairly (figure the odds).
ploome says
How do muslims define/understand fairly?
How do muslims understand “peace”?
They use words we recognize, but muslims have different definitions for “fairly” and “peace”.
Mike says
…And then they get to wear bags over their heads for the rest of their lives. Surely with all that tradition behind them, they must know something we benighted Westerners don’t?
Westman says
There is no Quranic support for FGM and Muhammad’s description of it as “..preservation of honour for women”, is secondhand at best.
Let’s get real and look at it from a functional, evolutionary, perspective:
The Muslim men begin to go on war parties, bringing back booty and women slaves. Husbands are gone for long periods leaving all home responsibilities to the women. Some lonely women form other relationships, undermining the war effort as the warriors lose confidence that their wives and significant others might seek other relationships. A crisis of recruits begins.
Allah’s “revelations” ensue to define an inferior, controlled, existence for women, directly declaring their inferiority and imposing limitations on their inheritance, reliability, and freedom to travel while also allowing a husband to beat them for any sign of independence.
At this point, some adolescents are still having intimate relationships and some lonely women are still having affairs. The partial solution – FGM to make sex less desirable for women while having no impact on men’s desire.
Please don’t shoot the messenger – men generally don’t prefer intimate relations with unresponsive partners. This might partially explain the bringing home of non-FGM sex slaves from the Islamic wars.
Only Islam could abusively make women into such quasi-zombies that hearing their husband frolic with a slave girl is acceptable.
Julian Flynn says
Whilst FGM is not mentioned by name in the Koran, verse 30:30 supports the practice when it commands ‘adhere to the fitrah’.
A famous hadith explains how one ‘adheres to the fitrah’:
>I heard the Prophet saying. “Five practices are characteristics of the Fitra: circumcision, shaving the pubic hair, cutting the moustaches short, clipping the nails, and depilating the hair of the armpits.”
(https://quranx.com/Hadith/Bukhari/USC-MSA/Volume-7/Book-72/Hadith-779)
The Arabic word translated here as ‘circumcision’ is ‘khitan’.
Dictionaries of classical Arabic, such as al-Lisan al-Arab and Lane’s Arabic-English Lexicon define ‘khitan’ as ‘the cutting of the male and the female genitals’ (see last definition on linked-to page: https://ejtaal.net/aa/img/ll/7/ll-0743.png)
This definition is confirmed by the usage of the word ‘khitan’ the hadiths. The following hadiths use the word ‘khitan’ for the cutting of the female genitals.
“Umm ‘Alqama related that when the daughters of ‘A’isha’s brother were circumcised [khitan], ‘A’isha was asked, “Shall we call someone to amuse them?” […]”
https://quranx.com/Hadith/AbuDawud/Hasan/Hadith-4448
“A woman used to perform circumcision [khitan] in Medina. The Prophet said to her: Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband.” https://quranx.com/Hadith/AbuDawud/Hasan/Hadith-5251
So, yes, FGM is not mentioned by name in the Koran.
But the Koran requires adherence to the fitrah by engaging in a set of practices, one of which is ‘khitan’ – the cutting of the male and of the female genitals.
The trope that the Koran does not support FGM is part of the whitewashing of the Islam that Robert writes about here.
gravenimage says
Other peoples had men who were away for long periods of time for various reasons, and they did not do this.
GianCarlo MATTA says
ritual mutilations inflicted on minors , both female and male , are an obscene barbarity .
࿗Infidel࿘ says
💯
skeptiker says
Es ekelt mich an, die Heuchelei der links-verblödeten Medien noch zu konsumieren.
skeptiker says
Es ekelt mich an, die Heuchelei der links-verblödeten Medien noch zu konsumieren.
Desinformation und Propaganda für eine umworbene Ideologie (Islam), die unseren Grundprinzipien der Aufklärung und der Menschenrechte widersprechen.
Wie moralisch verkommen muss man sein, so einer rückständigen, barbarischen Tradition von Verstümmelungen an Mädchen, Frauen und Jungen, begründet mit einem Aberglauben, der jeder Vernunft und Ethik spottet, nur einen Fuß breit die Tür zu öffnen ??
Andrew Blackadder says
So if Jews, muslims and Christians,(Americans) all believe their God created them and he was perfect in his creation then why do they all think their creator fell short by creating a Penis that must have the foreskin cut off exposing the head of the Penis to the elements rather than a cover to protect it and then to alter the Vagina so that she cannot enjoy sexual relations with her husband in a normal manner.
I guess their various versions of God didn’t think the sexual organs of those created by their God were not so important that the finished job will be handed to the people he created.
So are their God(s) perfect or not?.
What kind of madness is this…
Alkflaeda says
Male circumcision reduces the likelihood of both cervical cancer in a man’s partner, and penile cancer in the man himself. This is because foreign matter can get trapped by the foreskin, giving rise to infection, which is easily passed on to a sexual partner. The Biblical account is that death came into the world as a result of sin, which implies that either there were no infections when man was first created, or the human immune system was more robust than it later became.
Noah Andeark says
It’s just (p)islam. Practiced in the manner of the false prophet mohammed the pig-faced dog.
Ask the terrorists at the terror org CAIR.
Ian Harris says
Muslim men are terrified their women might enjoy sex with someone else. FGM removes any pleasurable sensation.
gravenimage says
Yep…
OLD GUY says
FGM just another wonderful thing that Islam brings to the world of diversity and multiculturalism. Islam is not just satisfied by beating, raping and murdering infidels they must also destroy the lives of WOMEN. How in the hell can any female in a western civilization stand up for islam. It’s like being committed to destroying your own life, or is their a female fantasy of being a slave girl? I can’t figure it out.
GianCarlo MATTA says
If the human body were “the work of a god,” there would be no point in mutilating it.
However, in Italy, minors are only mutilated if they are sick, certainly not if they are healthy.
GianCarlo MATTA says
if the human body were “the work of a god,” there would be no point in mutilating it. never.
however, in Italy, minors are only mutilated if they are sick, certainly not if they are healthy.
GianCarlo MATTA says
der islam ist unvereinbar mit der Zivilisation. wo der islam ankommt, verschwinden Zivilisationen. (entschuldigen Sie meine sprachlichen fehler.)
gravenimage says
The Gambia: One-month-old baby dies after undergoing female genital mutilation
………………………………………….
This *poor little baby*. God, I hate Islam. I doubt the killers will be prosecuted.