What were we saying about FGM? Egyptian cleric Sheikh Yussef al-Badri sets us straight, explaining to the Beeb’s Aleem Maqbool why it’s such a great idea.
I transcribed the heart of it. The ellipses represent his pauses to hunt for the word; he’s not fluent in English so make allowances for that.
Allah gives us orders, we don’t understand them.
But we have no real reason to think it is “Allah” giving us the orders. We have better reason to think it was a human being writing down either hallucinations or his own ideas dressed up as those of “Allah”.
This make the girl control her common sense about sex. Because the woman is quickly… feel…sex. Before man, for this. If we make Islamic circumcision, it will control her common sense, sex common sense, then she cannot be…feel…in need for man.
It’s clear enough what he means – women can get aroused quickly because of those pesky dangly bits, so if you shave them off, it’s much harder to arouse her – hey, maybe even impossible! Score! So that way she won’t be just wandering around feeling the need to grab a man all the time.
Maqbool: Man feels need for woman, as well.
Sheikh: Oh, Allah control this with marriage. [beams] Marriage! [beams more broadly]
Maqbool: Why would God make a woman like this if he wanted an operation?
Sheikh: [beams again] Ohh, I cannot ask Allah!
No, you cannot, and that’s exactly why you should shut the fuck up about it!
But I am his servant! I should obey! Because…in the [inaudible] of doom, he will give the punishment!
If you cannot ask Allah, then how the hell do you think you know any of that? It’s not something to laugh off as a jolly good joke, it’s a total deal-breaker. But of course he doesn’t see that, and he thinks this contradictory mess is a perfectly valid reason to shave off the genitalia of small girls.
Is FGM in the Koran?
I was under the impression that it wasn’t.
So, if you actually “ask Allah”, he’s silent on the issue.
When logic, and proportion have fallen softly dead
And the Koran’s written backwards, and the cleric’s off his head
Go ask Allah, I think he’ll know…
Maybe Allah should clarify his orders. Go ahead, ask him.
– No? Allah’s out? Again? When’s a good time to call?
– *click*
Yeah, and men are controlled by marriage. Which, apparently, isn’t strong enough to control a woman’s sexual drive. The logic is escaping me somewhere.
And that sums up just about every problem I have with taking things on faith. Imagine a judge who said “I have absolutely no way of knowing the defendant is guilty, but I’m still going to act as if I knew and let the defendant pay the price for what I arbitrarily chose to believe”. The only difference I see between this imaginary judge and the likes of Mr. Sheikh is that nobody in his/her right mind would accept the unjustified beliefs of the former as a mitigating circumstance, let alone a virtue.
Exactly. I keep wondering why this isn’t more of a problem. It should be a problem, but people treat it as an amusing foible, instead. The Sheikh dude laughed when he said it. “Lovable old Allah, never around to ask, hahaha.”
If marriage controls the “common sense” for men, making it unnecessary to amputate their dangly bits, why doesn’t it do the same for women?
There is definitely NO endorsement of FGM in the Koran. There might be a couple of Hadith that might be read to do so, but remember even the ‘authorities’ who collected them felt that they were more than 90% fraudulent.
So, when Mohammed needed god’s go-ahead to fuck his daugher-in-law, or a nine year old girl, Allah piped in the needed relvelation of Eternal Truth as right on cue. So if Mo wanted women cut, you can be damn’ sure that god would have chipped in.
Instead, in every regeion where FGM was ALREADY established, Muslim ‘authorities’ have ALWAYS supported is as being Islamic.
Wake up and smell the hypocrisy, if it doesn’t make you lose your dinner.
So to lose your wish for FGM you have to lose your wish for a genocidal tyrant to rule your life? I’m OK with that.