Ruling on Female Circumcision

The ruling by an Egyptian court overturning a government ban on female circumcision (June 25) is clearly a case of a government using religion for the purposes of maintaining a repugnant practice. The Mubarak administration is sacrificing women to quiet the Muslim opposition in order to appear more religious. As mentioned in the article, the majority of 1 billion Muslims worldwide do not practice female circumcision. In fact, this custom, which predates Islam, goes against the principle of true Islam, which guarantees a woman’s right to sexual satisfaction. [Gynecologist] Mounir Fawzi’s claim that it helps to keep women’s sexual drives “to acceptable and reasonable levels” is just a superficial ploy to give legitimacy to medical malpractice and to pacify the Muslim clerics.

We in the Muslim Women’s League consider this latest ruling a major defeat in the fight for women’s rights all over the world. It seems that we must increase our efforts with which we educate Muslim men and women in the countries that practice female genital mutilation. If we do not, then women will continue to suffer at the hands of those who will do anything to subjugate women and sustain the status quo.

LAILA AL-MARAYATI MD

President, Muslim Women’s

League, Los Angeles