The head Imam of al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Virginia, Shaker Elsayed, says it’s perfectly okay to perform genital mutilation on young girls.
Specifically, he says the removal of the clitoris and labia from a young girl is “the honorable thing to do” if needed. He adds that female genital mutilation (FGM) is needed at times to prevent hyper sexuality in young girls.
Elsayed even pointed out that doctors can help parents make that choice if it is necessary.
“This is something that a Muslim gynecologist can tell you if you need to or not… There used to be a lady who used to do this for women, or, I mean, young girls. She is expected to cut only the tip of the sexual sensitive part in the girl, so that she is not hyper-sexually active. This is the purpose.”
This comment was said in May, and was revealed by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) earlier this month. He is somewhat right: cutting off the sensitive areas in the female genitalia will prevent sexual stimulation in girls. Mutilation of a girls labia and clitoris can prevent them from having a sexual orgasm and scar them for the rest of their lives.
To him, he couldn’t care less about how this impacts a girl/woman. The imam even went further by saying that surgeons in muslim countries, who’ve had no experience in conducting the process, to cut “more than needed” and that it’s “prohibited.”
He said that could “seriously damage the sexual sensuality of the woman when she becomes an adult.”
“On the contrary, you see in societies where circumcision of girls is completely prohibited, hypersexuality takes over the entire society, and a woman is not satisfied with one person, or two, or three. This, God forbid, is now happening even in Muslim societies where they prohibit circumcision. They use a mistake in practice to prohibit the tradition, and they end up causing a lot of damage on the extreme side of the sexual life of the woman.”
Elsayed is only relaying the age-old “oppression of women” speech to us. What he says is completely untrue, esepecially when there is 200 million girls and women, that are alive, who underwent FGM. The process is associated with problems in the child-birthing process, leads to maternal deaths and much more.
Unicef notes: “Other side effects include severe pain, hemorrhage, tetanus, infection, infertility, cysts and abscesses, urinary incontinence, and psychological and sexual problems.”
A lot of people were upset over his controversial statements, especially the mosque he leads. The mosque issued a statement condoning his remarks and implied that Female Genital Mutilation is “prohibited in Islam as well as the laws of the land.”
Another imam who worked within the mosque also resigned after the remarks were made. Elsayed’s support for FGM is beyond insane, and completely outdated. We are in a new age where women have equal rights, and a right to making choices over their own body. It is imperative we hold those who support FGM accountable for spreading such nonsense to naive families and children.
Facebook Comments