The Cut That Was Never Commanded: A Forensic Examination of FGM, Its History, and its References in Islamic Sources

The Cut That Was Never Commanded: A Forensic Examination of FGM, Its History, and its References in Islamic Sources

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ 

"In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful."

In the archives of human suffering, few practices have been as relentlessly weaponized against the bodies of girls and women as Female Genital Mutilation. It is a procedure that has scarred millions—physically, psychologically, and spiritually—across continents and centuries. And for far too long, it has been defended, excused, and even sanctified under the banner of Islam.

But here is the truth that must be spoken into the silence: There is no verse in the Qur'an that commands FGM. There is no authentic hadith that mandates it. And the narrations that have been used to justify it collapse under the weight of their own weakness when subjected to classical hadith scrutiny.

The crime of FGM is not that it exists. The crime is that it has been cloaked in false religiosity, its origins in ancient cultural practices erased, its medical and psychological devastation dismissed, and its theological justification built on a foundation of sand.

We stand at the intersection of history, medicine, ethics, and Islamic jurisprudence. This is not a modern reformist project—it is a restoration project. We will not import external standards to judge a practice that predates Islam by millennia. Instead, we will use the tools of classical Islamic scholarship—hadith criticism (‘ilm al-ḥadīth), narrator evaluation (‘ilm al-rijāl), and jurisprudential methodology (uṣūl al-fiqh)—to examine every single narration ever cited in support of FGM.

The journey we are about to undertake will trace this practice from its ancient origins in Pharaonic Egypt, through its adoption in pre-Islamic Arabia, to its appearance in early Islamic sources, and finally to its condemnation by the very tools of Islamic scholarship that were meant to protect the innocent.

We will examine:

🏛️ The Historical Roots – How FGM existed in civilizations before Islam, from the Nile Valley to the Arabian Peninsula, as a cultural practice of control, not a religious command.

📜 The Narrations – Every single hadith ever cited in support of FGM, laid bare in their original Arabic, traced through their chains of transmission, and subjected to the rigorous criticism of classical scholars like Ibn Ḥajar al-‘Asqalānī, al-Dhahabī, al-Bayhaqī, and al-Shāfi‘ī himself.

🔬 The Medical Reality – What modern science has revealed about the permanent, irreversible harm caused by FGM, and how this harm violates the core Islamic principles of lā ḍarar (no harm) and lā ḍirār (no reciprocating harm).

💡 The Prophetic Silence – Why the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ—who commanded kindness to women, who prohibited harm in all its forms, who never struck a woman or a servant—never once commanded, performed, or even explicitly endorsed this practice.

🕋 The Qur'anic Rejection – How the very concept of FGM violates the Qur'an's affirmation of bodily integrity, its command to preserve the natural creation of God, and its rejection of altering creation in harmful ways.

This investigation is not about cultural superiority or modern Western judgment. It is about Islamic integrity. It is about asking a simple question: Did God command this? Did His Prophet command this? Or did something else—something ancient, something pre-Islamic, something utterly unrelated to revelation—slip into our tradition under the guise of piety?

The answer, as we will discover, is devastatingly clear.

The cut that was never commanded has been defended by hadiths that were never authentic. The suffering of millions has been justified by chains that were never unbroken. And the silence that has protected this practice for centuries has been built on scholarship that was never sound.

We will now walk through the history of this practice, trace its origins, and—using the very tools of classical Islamic scholarship—dismantle every single proof that has ever been offered in its defense.

The time has come to separate culture from religion, to distinguish tradition from revelation, and to restore to Islamic jurisprudence its foundational principle:

There shall be no harm inflicted, nor reciprocated. (lā ḍarar wa lā ḍirār)

And on the bodies of millions of girls who never had a choice, harm has been inflicted. It is time to name it, to trace it, and—finally—to end it.

Section I: The Ancient Roots —From the Nile to the World

Before Caesar crossed the Rubicon, before Alexander charged the Persians at Issus—the cut was already being made on the banks of the Nile. In the land of the Pharaohs, where civilization itself seemed to emerge from the river's annual flood, the practice of female genital cutting was not a religious command but a ritual of control, etched into the bodies of girls for reasons that had nothing to do with divine revelation and everything to do with social order, sexual regulation, and the commodification of female bodies.

The earliest evidence of what we now call Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) does not come from Arabia, nor from the hadith collections of the 9th century, nor from the jurisprudence of the classical scholars. It comes from ancient Egypt—from mummies, from papyri, from the silent testimony of skeletal remains that have preserved the secrets of the dead for over four millennia. In the archaeological record, the cut speaks louder than any text.

I.I.i The Literary Evidence: Strabo, Aetius, and the Greek Witnesses

The first explicit literary mention of female genital excision in Egypt comes from the Greek geographer Strabo (c. 64 BCE – c. 24 CE) , who visited Egypt around 25 BCE. In his Geographika, Strabo writes:

"This is one of the customs most zealously pursued by them [the Egyptians]: to raise every child that is born and to circumcise the males and excise the females." (Geographika 17.2.5)

Strabo's testimony is significant not because it is the earliest evidence—it is not—but because it confirms that by the first century BCE, the practice was so entrenched in Egyptian culture that a foreign observer could identify it as a distinctively Egyptian custom. Notably, Strabo attributes the same practice to the Jews of Judaea as well—but, significantly, he considers them Egyptians. This cultural attribution suggests that the practice was understood in the ancient world as originating in the Nile Valley.

The most detailed ancient description of the procedure comes from Aetius of Amida, a Greek physician and comes obsequii (official attendant physician) to the Emperor Justinian I (ruled 527–565 CE) . Aetius was born in Amida (modern Diyarbakır in Turkey) but studied medicine in Alexandria, Egypt, and his encyclopedic medical treatise, the Tetrabiblon, drew on earlier sources that are no longer extant. Book 16 of the Tetrabiblon, devoted to obstetrics and gynecology, contains the following description:

"The so-called nymphe [clitoris] is a sort of muscular or skinlike structure that lies above the juncture of the labia minora; below it the urinary outlet is positioned. [This structure] grows in size and is increased to excess in certain women, becoming a deformity and a source of shame. Furthermore, its continual rubbing against the clothes irritates it, and that stimulates the appetite for sexual intercourse. On this account, it seemed proper to the Egyptians to remove it before it became greatly enlarged, especially at that time when the girls were about to be married."

Aetius then describes the surgical procedure in precise detail:

"Have the girl sit on a chair while a muscled young man standing behind her places his arms below the girl's thighs. Have him separate and steady her legs and her whole body. Standing in front and taking hold of the clitoris with a broad-mouthed forceps in his left hand, the surgeon stretches it outward, while with the right hand, he cuts it off at the point next to the pincers of the forceps. It is proper to let a length remain from that cut off, about the size of the membrane that's between the nostrils, so as to take away the excess material only... Because the clitoris is a skinlike structure and stretches out excessively, do not cut off too much, as a urinary fistula may result from cutting such large growths too deeply."

This account is remarkable for several reasons:

First, Aetius explicitly identifies the procedure as Egyptian in origin and practice. Second, he states that the Egyptians performed it "especially at that time when the girls were about to be married" —confirming the link between the cut and marriageability. Third, the procedure he describes is clitoridectomy (removal of the clitoris) , not infibulation (the more severe form involving suturing the vaginal opening). Fourth, the level of surgical detail suggests a medicalized procedure performed by trained operators—not a crude folk practice.

The Soranus "family" of medical texts provides further evidence. Soranus of Ephesus (2nd century CE) wrote a Gynecology that included a chapter titled "On an excessively large clitoris" (Περὶ ὑπερφυοῦς νύμφης). Although the original Greek text of this chapter has not survived, it was translated into Latin by Muschio (probably 6th century CE) , whose version states:

"On the excessively large clitoris, which the Greeks call the 'masculinized' nymphe. The presenting feature of the deformity is a large masculinized clitoris. Indeed, some assert that its flesh becomes erect just as in men and as if in search of frequent sexual intercourse. You will remedy it in the following way: With the woman in a supine position, spreading the closed legs, it is necessary to hold [the clitoris] with a forceps turned to the outside so that the excess can be seen, and to cut off the tip with a scalpel, and finally, with appropriate diligence, to care for the resulting wound."

The 5th-century CE physician Caelius Aurelius, who synthesized much of Soranus's work, adds a significant detail in his Gynaecia:

"A dreadful size attends to certain clitorides and it upsets the women with the ugliness of the parts, and, as many relate, when it is affected by immoderate tumescence, these women acquire an appetite like men, and when [the clitoris] is so driven, they come into venery."

Here we see the recurring theme: excessive female sexual desire is the problem; removal of the clitoris is the solution. The procedure is framed as a curative measure for a "deformity" that causes women to desire sex too much.

The 11th-century CE physician al-Zahrawi (Abu al-Qasim), writing in Arabic in Islamic Spain, also describes the procedure in terms clearly derived from the Soranus tradition:

"The clitoris may grow in size above the order of nature so that it gets a horrible deformed appearance; in some women it becomes erect like the male organ and attains to coitus. You must grasp the growth with your hand or a hook and cut it off. Do not cut too deeply, especially at the root of the growth, lest hemorrhage occur."

Significantly, al-Zahrawi's description is the first time the procedure would have been accessible, to one degree or another, to the native population of Egypt in Arabic. But the origin of the practice, as the medical tradition consistently attests, is not Islamic—it is Egyptian.

I.I.ii The Papyrological Evidence: Tathemis and the Temple Circumcision

The literary evidence from Greek and Roman authors is corroborated by papyrological evidence from Ptolemaic Egypt. A papyrus now in the British Museum (P. Lond. I 24 , dated 163 BCE) contains a letter concerning an Egyptian girl named Tathemis, who was associated with the Temple of Sarapis of Memphis. The letter states:

"Sometime after this, Nephoris defrauded me, being anxious that it was time for Tathemis to be circumcised, as is the custom among the Egyptians. She asked that I give her 1,300 drachmae from what [Tathemis] had paid me ... to clothe her ... and to provide her a marriage dowry, and [she promised that] if she didn't do each of these or if she did not circumcise Tathemis in the month of Mecheir, year 18 [163 BCE], she would repay me 2,400 drachmae on the spot."

This document is crucial for several reasons:

First, it confirms that female circumcision was practiced in Egypt in the 2nd century BCE—contemporaneous with the Greek literary accounts. Second, it explicitly states that the practice was "the custom among the Egyptians" (ὡς ἔθος ἐστὶ τοῖς Αἰγυπτίοις), not a foreign import. Third, it links the circumcision to marriage preparation (the dowry, the clothing). Fourth, it associates the girl with a temple—suggesting that the practice may have had ritual or religious dimensions in addition to its social functions.

Scholars have debated whether Tathemis's circumcision was connected to her temple service. Some, like Sudhoff, have argued that there was an association between female circumcision and temple service in Ptolemaic Egypt. Others, like Wendland, have been more cautious, noting that the letter indicates the rite was "as is the custom among the Egyptians" preparatory to marriage. Regardless, the document provides contemporary, non-literary evidence that the practice was being performed in Egypt in the period immediately before the rise of Islam.

I.I.iii The Hieroglyphic Evidence: The Coffin Text and the "Uncircumcised Girl"

The earliest possible reference to female circumcision in Egyptian texts comes from a Middle Kingdom coffin (12th Dynasty, c. 1991–1786 BCE) now preserved in the Egyptian Museum (sarcophagus no. 28085). The text is a magical spell (Coffin Text spell 1117) that describes a ritual anointment:

"If a man wants to know how to live, he should recite it every day, after his flesh has been rubbed with the b3d of an uncircumcised girl and the flakes of skin of an uncircumcised bald man."

The presence of the word for uncircumcised male ('m') supports the translation of the word relating to the female, 'm't, as "uncircumcised girl" —as most scholars have done. This reading is reasonable, though some Egyptologists remain uncomfortable with it. The text does not tell us what the "circumcised state" entailed—whether it was the removal of the clitoris, the labia, or some other procedure. But it does suggest that female circumcision was known in Egypt as early as the Middle Kingdom, nearly two millennia before the Greek and Roman accounts.

I.I.iv The Archaeological Evidence: Mummies and the Absence of Infibulation

What does the physical evidence—the mummies themselves—tell us about the practice in ancient Egypt? The answer is complex and requires careful parsing.

G. Elliot Smith, an Australian pathologist who visually inspected hundreds of mummies in the early decades of the 20th century, observed that infibulation (the most severe form of FGM, involving the removal of the labia majora and the suturing of the vaginal opening) had not been performed on any of the mummies he examined. In his remarks on the technique of mummification during the 21st Dynasty, he noted that in most cases the skin of the labia majora, "while still soft and flexible, was pushed backward toward the anus so as to form an apron covering the rima pudenda" —a procedure that could give the appearance of infibulation but was actually part of the mummification process.

Smith did not specifically address the question of first- or second-degree circumcision (clitoridectomy or excision of the labia minora) , at least not in print. He recorded that soft tissues were frequently removed by the embalmers, either accidentally or deliberately, or deteriorated to a point where it was impossible to determine whether a lighter circumcision had been made.

Saphinaz-Amal Naguib analyzed the same coffin text and, with her reading of a hieroglyph showing the position of the ancient Egyptian woman in labor, concluded that infibulation was not practiced in Egypt in antiquity—a conclusion that accords well with the Greek descriptions of the clinical procedure, which describe clitoridectomy, not infibulation.

The critical distinction here is one that modern discussions of FGM often conflate:

Type of FGM	Description	Evidence in Ancient Egypt
Type I (Clitoridectomy)	Removal of the clitoris (partial or total)	Strong literary evidence (Strabo, Aetius, Soranus)
Type II (Excision)	Removal of clitoris and labia minora	Possible but less clearly attested
Type III (Infibulation)	Removal of clitoris, labia minora, and labia majora, with suturing	NO EVIDENCE (contradicted by mummy examinations)

The "Pharaonic circumcision" of modern Sudan—infibulation—is a misnomer. It was not practiced in Pharaonic Egypt. The ancient Egyptian practice was clitoridectomy, a milder form of cutting that removed the clitoris but did not involve the extensive suturing characteristic of infibulation.

I.I.v The Diffusion from Egypt: How the Cut Traveled

If the practice originated in Egypt, how did it spread to other regions—including the Arabian Peninsula, where it would later be absorbed into Islamic discourse?

Seligman, in his consideration of the geographical distribution of female mutilation in Africa and the East, concluded:

"The geographical distribution of the custom of mutilation in Africa and the East indicates that it arose in the Hamito-Semitic area in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea. It is distributed round this area in just such a manner as might be expected if it had at first remained more or less localized among the peoples sprung from a common stock, and had then been carried far afield by the great wave of Semitic influence that followed the birth of Islam."

Seligman further noted:

"The geographical distribution of 'mutilation' fully bears out the contention that the custom is not originally Mohammedan or even Arab... But since the rite existed in ancient Egypt, and is found at the present day over so great a part of Africa east of the Nile... it follows that the custom must be either indigenous or due to physical or cultural contact with a people who practised it."

The diffusion pattern follows predictable vectors:

Vector 1: The Nile Corridor – From Egypt, the practice spread southward along the Nile into Sudan, where it became more severe (infibulation developing as a later intensification). Vector 2: The Red Sea Coast – From Egypt, the practice crossed the Red Sea into the Arabian Peninsula, where it was adopted by certain tribes. Vector 3: The Horn of Africa – Through trade and migration, the practice spread into Ethiopia, Somalia, and Djibouti, where it remains prevalent today. Vector 4: Westward across Africa – Through caravan routes and the spread of Islam, the practice radiated westward across the Sahel and into sub-Saharan Africa.

Cloudsley notes the correspondence between the distribution of infibulation in the Sudan in the 19th century and the major trade routes:

"The distribution of infibulation in the Sudan in the 19th century appears to correspond with the north-south caravan route to the 'interior' of Africa, which linked Sennar with Egypt by way of the Nile; and the east-west caravan route traversing the Wadia and then across the western desert of Sudan through Kordofan, so linking Darfur with Suakin on the Red Sea Coast and thence to Massawa the port of Eritrea."

Trade and slavery played significant roles in the diffusion. Arab traders exported large numbers of slaves from Africa to the Muslim world. Nubian females were particularly popular as midwives and nurses, and the more attractive ones served as concubines. Some scholars have suggested that infibulation may have been performed on female slaves by Turkish slave traders to prevent pregnancy, though this cannot be substantiated. 

A crucial distinction must be made: Islam was a carrier, not the cause, of FGM.

The practice did not originate with Islam. It was already present in Egypt for millennia before the revelation of the Qur'an. It was already present in Arabia, where it was practiced by certain pre-Islamic tribes. When Islam spread across North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and into sub-Saharan Africa, it did not introduce the practice—it encountered it. And in many regions, the practice was retained by populations that converted to Islam, not because Islam commanded it, but because it was their ancestral custom.

The populations that practice FGM today are overwhelmingly Muslim—but they are also overwhelmingly populations that inherited the practice from their pre-Islamic ancestors. The practice is unknown in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, and among the Arab populations of the Levant. If FGM were truly an Islamic practice, one would expect it to be found wherever Islam is found. It is not.

The geographical distribution tells the story: FGM is practiced in Egypt (where it originated), in Sudan (down the Nile corridor), in Somalia and Ethiopia (across the Red Sea), and in West Africa (along caravan routes). It is not practiced in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, or Malaysia—all majority-Muslim nations.

The cut traveled with traders, not with revelation.

I.I.vii Summary: What the Ancient Evidence Teaches Us

The evidence from ancient Egypt, spanning nearly three millennia, establishes several critical facts:

Fact	Evidence
FGM existed in Egypt long before Islam	Coffin texts from the Middle Kingdom (c. 1991–1786 BCE) reference "uncircumcised girls"
The practice was clitoridectomy, not infibulation	Greek medical texts describe removal of the clitoris; mummy examinations find no evidence of infibulation
It was performed at marriageable age	Aetius states it was done "especially at that time when the girls were about to be married"
The rationale was control of female sexuality	Medical texts cite "excessive desire" as the indication
The practice spread from Egypt via trade routes	Distribution follows the Nile corridor, Red Sea coast, and caravan routes
Islam inherited the practice; it did not command it	FGM is absent in Saudi Arabia and other core Islamic lands

The cut was never commanded by God. It was never commanded by the Prophet. It was a pre-existing cultural practice, rooted in ancient Egyptian beliefs about female purity and sexual control, that was absorbed into certain Muslim societies—but never into Islam itself.

From the Nile, the practice would travel. It would be adopted by neighboring cultures, absorbed into the customs of the Arabian Peninsula, and—centuries later—would find its way into the margins of Islamic texts through narrations that were already weak when they were first recorded.

But before we can understand how the cut entered the Islamic tradition, we must first understand where it came from—and the world that first carved it into stone. That world was not Mecca. It was not Medina. It was the land of the Pharaohs, where the cut was made for reasons that had nothing to do with revelation and everything to do with control.

Section I.II: A Menu of Motivations — Why the Cut Was Made, and Why It Was Never Innocent

I.II.i The Fundamental Question: Why Cut at All?

The question that has haunted this practice for millennia is not "where did it come from?" but "why did anyone think this was necessary?", female genital cutting had no medical justification. It was never about health. It was never about purity. It was never about God.

From the earliest Greek observers to the medieval Arab physicians, from the ancient Egyptians to the modern practitioners, the stated motivations for FGM have clustered around a single, unmistakable theme: the control of female sexuality.

As the physician Aetius of Amida wrote in the 6th century CE, citing his source Philumenus (a 2nd-3rd century physician from Egypt):

"The so-called nymphe [clitoris]... in some women attains such a size when it takes on growth that it tends towards unseemliness and becomes something shameful. And further it is irritated as it constantly rubs against clothing and it stimulates the impulse towards sexual intercourse. On that account it seemed reasonable to the Egyptians to amputate the nymphe before it became too large, especially before the marriageable virgins were to be assigned."

This passage is a window into a worldview. The clitoris—a normal anatomical structure—is framed as a problem because it "stimulates the impulse towards sexual intercourse." The solution? Remove it. The timing? Before marriage. The purpose? To ensure that the woman enters marriage with her sexual impulses already dulled, already controlled, already surrendered.

The cut was not about health. It was about compliance.

I.II.ii The Medical "Justification": Treating a "Deformity" That Wasn't a Deformity

The ancient medical writers framed clitoridectomy as a curative procedure for an "excessively large clitoris" (ὑπερμεγέθης νύμφη). But this framing obscures more than it reveals.

Soranus of Ephesus (1st-2nd century CE), whose original Greek text on the subject is lost but preserved in Latin translations, described the condition as one of "turpitude" (turpitudo). The woman with an enlarged clitoris was not just physically different—she was morally problematic. Her clitoris, the writers claimed, could become erect "like a man's," and she would develop a "male-like sexual appetite."

Caelius Aurelianus (5th century CE), translating Soranus, wrote:

"An uncouth size is present in certain clitorises and brings women into disorder by the deformity of the (private) parts and, as most people say, those same women, affected by the lust [or: erection] (typical) of men, take on a similar desire, and they approach sexual intercourse (i.e., with men) only under duress."

The woman who wanted sex too much—or who wanted sex on her own terms—was pathologized. Her clitoris was not the problem. Her autonomy was the problem. And the scalpel was the solution.

Paul of Aegina (7th century CE) echoed the same logic:

"In certain women the nympha is excessively large and presents a shameful deformity, insomuch that, as has been related, some women have had erections of this part like men, and also venereal desires of a like kind."

The "deformity" was not a medical condition—it was a social judgment. A woman who desired sex, who sought pleasure, who asserted her own needs, was deemed "deformed." And the cure was to cut away the organ that made such pleasure possible.

I.II.iii The Egyptian Origin: A Pre-Islamic Custom

Crucially, Aetius explicitly attributes the practice to the Egyptians, not to any religious command:

"On that account it seemed reasonable to the Egyptians to amputate the nymphe before it became too large, especially before the marriageable virgins were to be assigned."

This is not an Islamic practice. It is not a Jewish practice (though some ancient authors confused it as such). It is a pre-Islamic, pre-Christian, pre-Jewish Egyptian practice—a cultural artifact of the Nile Valley that predated Moses, let alone Muhammad.

Strabo (c. 64 BCE – c. 24 CE), the Greek geographer, observed the same:

"This is one of the customs most zealously pursued by them [the Egyptians]: to raise every child that is born and to circumcise the males and excise the females."

The Egyptians did not need a divine command to cut their daughters. They did it because it was their custom—a custom rooted in the belief that female desire was dangerous and must be controlled.

I.II.iv The Sexual Logic: Reducing Desire, Ensuring Virginity, Controlling Pleasure

Mary Knight, in her comprehensive study of FGM in antiquity, identifies a "menu of motivations" that circulated in the ancient world. The most persistent of these was the prevention of "excessive" female sexual desire.

The ancient medical writers were explicit: the clitoris, when stimulated (even by the friction of clothing), "stimulates the impulse towards sexual intercourse." Remove the clitoris, and you remove the impulse. The logic was simple, brutal, and false.

But there was another motivation: ensuring virginity before marriage. Aetius notes that the procedure was performed "especially before the marriageable virgins were to be assigned." The cut was a pre-marital rite—a way to guarantee that the bride was intact, untouched, and unable to experience the kind of pleasure that might lead her to seek sex outside of marriage.

The cut was not about protecting the girl. It was about protecting the investment her father had made in her marriageability.

I.II.v The Moral Logic: Preventing "Fornication" and Preserving Chastity

The medieval Arab physician al-Jahiz (c. 776–869 CE), in his monumental Kitab al-Hayawan ("Book of Animals"), provides one of the most explicit discussions of the motivations for female circumcision in the Islamic period. And his words are devastatingly honest:

"The woman who retains her clitoris (al-baẓrā') experiences pleasure that the circumcised woman does not. If the clitoris is completely and thoroughly removed, the pleasure is reduced accordingly. The original purpose of female circumcision was not to achieve beauty, but to seek a reduction in desire, so that chastity might be confined to them."

Let this passage sink in. Al-Jahiz is not condemning the practice—he is describing its intended function. And that function is unambiguous: to reduce female sexual desire so that women will be chaste.

He continues, citing a purported saying of the Prophet Muhammad (which, as we will see in the hadith analysis, is weak and unreliable):

"The Prophet ﷺ said to the circumciser: 'O Umm 'Atiyyah, leave some of it and do not completely excise it, for that is more radiant for the face and more pleasing to the husband.'"

Even in this weak narration, the logic is the same: the cut is about pleasing the husband and controlling the wife's appearance—not about any divine command.

Al-Jahiz then makes an even more startling claim:

"A man among our great nobles used to say to the circumciser: 'Do not cut off anything except what is apparent (i.e., the clitoris that protrudes).'"

The "noble" wanted to remove the clitoris—but only the visible part. Even he recognized that the clitoris had a function, and he did not want to remove it entirely. The practice was not uniform; it was negotiated, debated, and modified—even among its proponents.

I.II.vi The "Comparative" Logic: India, Rome, Persia—and the Supposed Link to Chastity

Al-Jahiz also makes a comparative ethnographic claim that reveals the deep-seated assumptions behind the practice:

"The women of India, Rome, and Persia are more prone to fornication and seeking men because their desire for men is greater. For this reason, the Indians have established houses for prostitutes. There is no cause for this except the abundance of the clitoris and the prepuce."

This is pseudo-science masquerading as observation. Al-Jahiz is not reporting data—he is projecting a theory. He believes that women who are not circumcised are inherently more lustful, more prone to "fornication," more likely to seek out men. And he attributes this entirely to the presence of the clitoris and the labia.

The circular logic is unmistakable: Women who are not circumcised are unchaste → therefore, circumcision prevents unchastity → therefore, all women should be circumcised. The premise is unproven; the conclusion is imposed.

Al-Jahiz adds:

"The Indians agree with the Arabs in everything except in the circumcision of men and women. What led them to this was their excessive concern for preserving sexual pleasure."

The irony is staggering. The Indians, according to al-Jahiz, did not circumcise because they wanted to preserve sexual pleasure. The Arabs, by contrast, circumcised to reduce it. The practice was not universal; it was a choice—a choice rooted in a particular cultural attitude toward female desire.

I.II.vii The "Chastity" Test: An Anecdote That Proves Nothing

Al-Jahiz also cites a judge named Janab ibn al-Khashkhash who claimed:

"I surveyed in one village the circumcised and uncircumcised women, and I found that the most chaste were those who had been completely circumcised, and the most promiscuous were the uncircumcised."

This is not evidence—it is anecdote dressed as data. There is no control group, no definition of "chastity," no accounting for social pressure, no recognition that circumcised women might be more closely monitored because they come from families that practice circumcision. The judge saw what he wanted to see.

But this anecdote reveals something important: the belief that the cut works. Whether or not it actually reduces desire (modern medicine says it does not), the belief that it does has been enough to sustain the practice for millennia. And that belief is rooted in a fundamental distrust of female sexuality—a distrust that the cut is meant to resolve.

I.II.viii The Truth: The Cut Is About Control, Not Health

What emerges from all of these sources—ancient Greek, Roman, and Arab—is a single, unbroken thread of reasoning:

Motivation	Source	Implication
Reduce sexual desire	Aetius, Philumenus, al-Jahiz	Female desire is dangerous and must be diminished
Prevent "shameful" behavior	Soranus, Caelius Aurelianus, Paul of Aegina	The clitoris is a "deformity" that leads to "turpitude"
Ensure virginity before marriage	Aetius ("especially before marriageable virgins")	The bride's body must be certified as untouched
Increase marital harmony	The weak hadith ("more pleasing to the husband")	The wife's pleasure is irrelevant; the husband's satisfaction is paramount
Prevent "fornication"	Al-Jahiz, the judge's anecdote	Uncircumcised women are supposedly more prone to infidelity

Not one of these motivations is medical. Not one is based on a concern for the girl's health, well-being, or bodily integrity. Not one is commanded in the Qur'an or authentically established in the Sunnah.

The cut was never about healing. It was about control. It was about managing female bodies for male purposes—marriage, lineage, honor, and sexual access.

I.II.ix The Medical Reality: What the Cut Actually Does

Modern medical science has definitively established what the ancient physicians could not know: clitoridectomy does NOT reduce sexual desire. It reduces sexual satisfaction—often dramatically—but it does not eliminate the hormonal and neurological drives that underpin sexual desire.

What the cut actually does:

Effect	Consequence
Removal of the clitoris	Eliminates the primary organ of female sexual pleasure
Scarring and nerve damage	Causes chronic pain, reduced sensitivity, and sexual dysfunction
Psychological trauma	Leads to anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress
Obstetric complications	Increases risk of prolonged labor, hemorrhage, and maternal death
Infections and fistulas	Causes recurrent urinary tract infections, pelvic pain, and incontinence

The ancient physicians promised chastity. They delivered mutilation. They promised control. They delivered suffering.

I.II.x The Qur'anic Rejection: What the Cut Violates

The Qur'an never commands female genital cutting. Not once. Not in any verse. Not in any authentic interpretation.

What the Qur'an does command is:

• Preservation of bodily integrity – "And do not throw yourselves into destruction" (2:195)

• Prohibition of harm – The Prophet's principle of lā ḍarar wa lā ḍirār (no harm inflicted nor reciprocated)

• Respect for God's creation – "So set your face toward the religion as a pure monotheist—the natural pattern (fiṭrah) upon which God has created mankind" (30:30)

• Mutual love and mercy in marriage – "And among His signs is that He created for you mates from among yourselves that you may find tranquility in them, and He placed between you affection and mercy" (30:21)

The cut violates every single one of these principles. It is harm. It is destruction. It is a desecration of God's creation. It is the opposite of affection and mercy.

The Qur'an did not command the cut. The Prophet did not command the cut. The early Muslim community did not uniformly practice it. It was a pre-existing cultural practice—Egyptian, not Islamic—that was absorbed into certain Muslim societies, defended by weak and unreliable hadiths, and perpetuated by the very beliefs that Islam came to challenge.

I.II.xi The Final Verdict: A Menu of False Justifications

The menu of motivations for FGM is a menu of false justifications:

Justification	Truth
"It reduces sexual desire"	False—it reduces satisfaction, not desire
"It ensures virginity"	False—virginity is not determined by the clitoris
"It prevents promiscuity"	False—promiscuity is a social choice, not a biological imperative
"It is Islamic"	False—the Qur'an does not command it, and the hadiths are weak
"It is hygienic"	False—it causes chronic infections and complications
"It is traditional"	True—but tradition is not revelation, and harmful traditions must be abandoned

The cut was never commanded. The cut was never necessary. The cut was never about health or piety. It was about power—the power of men over women's bodies, the power of culture over individual autonomy, the power of fear over reason.

And it is time to name it for what it is: a mutilation, not a purification; a harm, not a healing; a tradition, not a command.

Section I.III: The Geography of the Cut — Why Northeast Africa Became the Epicenter of Infibulation

I.III.i The Question of Place: Why Here and Not There?

If the cut originated in ancient Egypt, why did it become most severe—and most persistent—not in the Nile Delta, but in the arid lands stretching from Sudan to Somalia? Why did infibulation, the most extreme form of female genital mutilation, take root among the pastoral nomads of the Red Sea hills, the camel herders of the Horn of Africa, and the agro-pastoral communities of the Ethiopian borderlands? And why did milder forms of cutting spread elsewhere, while the "Pharaonic" procedure—so named for its supposed Egyptian origins—became concentrated in a specific ecological and cultural zone?

The answer lies not in religion, not in revelation, not in any divine command, but in geography, climate, demography, and the particular pressures of pastoral life in one of the harshest environments on earth.

Esther K. Hicks, in her magisterial study of infibulation in northeastern Africa, mapped the distribution of the practice against the grain of the land itself. What emerges is a pattern that is not random but deterministic: the cut follows the contours of aridity, the migrations of nomads, and the imperatives of survival in a world where water is scarce, pasture is unpredictable, and the social order must be maintained through the strictest control of women's bodies.

This is not the geography of revelation. This is the geography of survival—and survival, in these lands, demanded the enclosure of women.

I.III.ii The Geographic Distribution: Mapping the Cut

Hicks's research, drawing on a century of ethnographic and demographic data, delineates a clear geographic zone where infibulation is the norm:

Region	Countries	Key Populations	Practice
Northern Sudan	Sudan, eastern Chad	Kababish, Baggara, Beja, Shaiqiyya, Ja'aliyyin, Rufa'a al-Hoi	Infibulation (Pharaonic)
Red Sea Coast	Eritrea, Djibouti, northern Somalia	'Afar (Danakil), Saho, Beni Amir, Esa, Gadabursi	Infibulation
Ethiopian Borderlands	Ethiopia (Harar Province, Ogaden)	Somali-related Galla, Dir, Darod, Ogaden Somali	Infibulation
Northern Somalia	Somalia (northern regions)	Isaaq, Darod, Hawiya, Mijertein	Infibulation
Southern Somalia	Somalia (southern regions)	Digil, Rahanwin (mixed evidence)	Sunna (clitoridectomy) or infibulation

The pattern is striking: infibulation is concentrated in the northern, arid, pastoral zones of the Horn and Sudan. The southern, more agricultural, more riverine regions either practice milder forms or do not practice at all.

Hicks notes:

"Infibulation was found to have no tradition in either the southern Sudan or the highland areas of Ethiopia... these regions have been excluded from this study."

The cut follows the desert, not the river. It follows the camel, not the plow.

I.III.iii The Ecological Imperative: Pastoralism and the Control of Women

Why would pastoral life demand a more severe form of female genital cutting than agricultural life? The answer lies in the unique pressures of nomadism.

Hicks identifies the key variable: subsistence mode. Populations that practice infibulation are overwhelmingly either:

Subsistence Mode	Characteristics	Infibulation Prevalence
Nomadic pastoral	Camel herding, high mobility, harsh environment	Highest
Seminomadic	Mixed herding with minimal cultivation, seasonal migration	High
Agro-pastoral	Village-based agriculture with animal husbandry	Moderate to high
Sedentary agricultural	Permanent cultivation, riverine or rain-fed	Low or none

The more mobile the population, the more severe the cut.

Hicks explains the logic:

"The combination of an extremely harsh environment and the concomitant need for an extensive support network is also related to the practice of clan exogamy among Somali pastoralists. Here, even though (exogamous) affinal (marriage) ties in this (patrilineal) system are, and remain, secondary to agnatic ties, they nevertheless produce the alliance formations necessary for purposes of defense, strategic resource sharing (and the cooperative management of herds), as well as provide an extensive support network necessary in times of crises (e.g., during periods of extended drought)."

In a world where survival depends on alliances between clans, women become the currency of those alliances. And a woman whose sexuality is not strictly controlled is a liability—a potential source of conflict, a potential breach of alliance, a potential destroyer of the fragile web of cooperation that keeps families alive.

I.III.iv The Water-Pasture-Marriage Nexus: How Ecology Shapes Patriarchy

The logic of pastoral patriarchy follows a brutal chain:

Step 1: Scarcity of Resources

• Rainfall is unpredictable (100-200 mm annually in most pastoral zones)

• Pasture is seasonal and migratory

• Water sources are few and contested

Step 2: Dependence on Alliances

• No single clan can survive alone

• Marriage creates affinal ties that allow access to grazing and water

• Daughters become diplomatic assets

Step 3: Value of Virginity

• A daughter's marriage value depends on her perceived purity

• Any doubt about her chastity reduces bride-wealth

• Bride-wealth is the primary means of wealth transfer

Step 4: Control of Female Sexuality

• To guarantee virginity, you must control the body

• To control the body, you must remove the source of temptation

• Infibulation is the most effective guarantee

Step 5: The Severity Gradient

• The harsher the environment, the more valuable the alliance

• The more valuable the alliance, the more stringent the control

• The more stringent the control, the more severe the cut

This is not about Islam. It is about ecology dressed in religious clothing.

I.III.v The River Divide: Why the Nile and the Shebelle Drew Different Lines

One of the most striking patterns in Hicks's data is the contrast between the Nile Valley and the interior deserts.

Region	Water Source	Subsistence	Infibulation
Northern Nile Valley (Egypt to Khartoum)	Nile River	Sedentary agriculture (irrigation)	Clitoridectomy (milder)
Eastern Desert (Red Sea hills)	Seasonal wadis, wells	Pastoral nomadism (camels, sheep, goats)	Infibulation (severe)
Southern Sudan	Nile swamps, high rainfall	Mixed agriculture, fishing	None
Ethiopian Highlands	Rain-fed, permanent rivers	Sedentary agriculture	None
Ogaden Desert	Seasonal, unpredictable	Pastoral nomadism	Infibulation

The Nile, which gave life to Egypt, also gave rise to a more settled, more agricultural civilization—one where women's bodies were still controlled, but through clitoridectomy rather than infibulation. The eastern deserts, by contrast, produced a more mobile, more precarious existence—and a more extreme form of control.

The distribution of infibulation were thus layed over the major historical trade routes—the caravan trails that connected the Red Sea ports to the interior. These routes were the arteries of the slave trade, and they were also the vectors along which infibulation spread.

I.III.vi The Role of Trade Routes and Slavery

The geographic distribution of infibulation corresponds almost perfectly with the major trade routes of northeastern Africa.

Trade Route	Termini	Commodities	Infibulation Corridor
Nile Corridor	Egypt to Sennar	Slaves, gold, ivory	Northern Sudan
Red Sea Coast	Suakin to Massawa to Zeila	Slaves, ivory, myrrh, frankincense	Eritrea, Djibouti, northern Somalia
East-West Caravan	Darfur to Suakin	Slaves, camels, textiles	Kordofan, Darfur, Red Sea coast
Shebelle-Juba Corridor	Ethiopian highlands to Mogadishu	Slaves, ivory, grain	Southern Somalia (mixed)

Cloudsley notes the correspondence:

"The distribution of infibulation in the Sudan in the 19th century appears to correspond with the north-south caravan route to the 'interior' of Africa, which linked Sennar with Egypt by way of the Nile; and the east-west caravan route traversing the Wadia and then across the western desert of Sudan through Kordofan, so linking Darfur with Suakin on the Red Sea Coast and thence to Massawa the port of Eritrea."

The slave trade was particularly significant. Nubian females were prized as concubines and domestic servants throughout the Islamic world. Hayder observed that among the Shaiqiyya, circumcision for both males and females "denotes Islam and Arabism," and that to be non-circumcised "denotes mean origin, as only slaves and some non-Moslem people were not circumcised."

Courtecuisse proposed that populations directly affected by the slave trade might have infibulated their female offspring very early in life to discourage their being taken as slaves. The logic was brutal but rational: an infibulated girl was less desirable to slave traders—or, conversely, more valuable because her virginity was "guaranteed."

I.III.vii The Urban-Pastoral Continuum: How Sedentarization Changes Practice

One of the most significant findings in Hicks's research is that infibulation is not static. It changes—and often becomes milder—as populations settle.

Settlement Type	Practice	Change
Fully nomadic	Infibulation (severe)	Baseline
Seminomadic	Infibulation (moderate)	Some reduction
Agro-pastoral	Mixed (infibulation or clitoridectomy)	Variable
Sedentary agricultural	Clitoridectomy or none	Significant reduction
Urban	Clitoridectomy or abandonment	Most change

The mechanism is clear: when families no longer depend on constant migration, when alliances can be maintained through other means, when daughters are not the only currency of survival—the pressure to control female sexuality through extreme measures diminishes.

But change is slow. Hicks notes that even among urban populations, the persistence of infibulation is maintained by female elders—the very women who were infibulated themselves, and who see the practice as essential to their daughters' marriageability and honor.

"Women do not correlate their social identity and social responsibility with their genitals. Indeed, after the initial operation, the issue is closed (literally and figuratively speaking). Women do not even correlate subsequent physical discomfort, pain, and related gynecological and obstetric problems with having been circumcised. Such physical problems are perceived as being the common lot of women."

The cut perpetuates itself because it is encoded not in law, but in the body—and in the social memory of the women who perform it.

I.III.viii The Somali Exception: Pastoralism Perfected

The Somali people represent the most extreme case of the pastoral-infibulation correlation. Hicks notes:

"Somalia is primarily a one-nationality state and, generally speaking, represents the only geographical area in this study with a homogeneous population... Approximately 75 percent of this three-fifths (nomadic and seminomadic) is fully nomadic."

The Somali environment is among the harshest on earth:

Factor	Characteristic	Impact
Rainfall	50-200 mm annually, highly unpredictable	Pasture availability uncertain
Temperature	Extreme heat year-round	High water demand
Terrain	Rocky desert, sparse vegetation	Difficult migration
Water sources	Widely scattered, often seasonal	Competition and conflict

In this environment, the clan is the only safety net. And the clan's survival depends on controlling the reproductive capacity of its women.

I. M. Lewis observed:

"The continuing importance of clanship in towns is... apparent in the management of pastoral lineage affairs from the towns and even in the organization of... new political movements. ... There is generally no discontinuity between rural and urban society for both town and interior form part of a common pattern of life dominated by pastoral values."

Even when Somalis move to cities, they carry the pastoral logic with them. The cut follows.

I.III.ix The Closed System: Why Outside Intervention Fails

Hicks introduces a crucial concept: the "closed cultural system."

"According to Horton, traditional cultures can be defined as closed when 'there is no developed awareness of alternatives and anxiety about threats to the system.' Specifically, the 'closed' culture can be described as bound up in superstition and magic, where ideas are confined to occasions, thinking is unreflective, basic beliefs are not questioned, events and actions not falling in line with established categories are taboo, and where no concept of progress exists."

Islamic northeastern Africa, Hicks argues, is such a closed system:

"In those social systems where Islam is perceived as incorporating a rule and regulation for daily life, and where its tenets are deemed sacrosanct, it is feasible that only a small proportion of the population will be confronted with conditions outside their immediate environment. ... Exposure to 'open' cultures falls on deaf ears."

This is not to say that change is impossible. But it requires more than laws or condemnations. It requires a shift in the underlying ecology—or a generational shift in the women who hold the tradition in place.

Hicks notes that even education has a paradoxical effect:

"The recent return to strict Islamic codes has been especially manifest among university students of both sexes! The explanation for this lies less in the lack of availability and access to information than in the fact that the student unions of all major universities in northern Sudan... are completely controlled by Moslem Brothers."

The closed system can absorb external influences and repurpose them in service of the same patriarchal logic.

I.III.x The Geography of the Cut: A Summary

The evidence from Hicks's study reveals a clear geographic and ecological logic to the distribution of infibulation:

Factor	Relationship to Infibulation
Aridity	Positive: the drier the climate, the more severe the practice
Pastoralism	Positive: the more mobile the subsistence, the more severe the practice
Agricultural settlement	Negative: settled populations practice milder forms or none
Trade routes	Positive: corridors of slavery and commerce spread the practice
Urbanization	Negative: cities tend toward milder forms or abandonment
Islamic orthodoxy	Ambiguous: can reinforce or mitigate depending on local interpretation

The cut was not commanded by God. It was demanded by the desert.

I.III.xi The Final Verdict: Ecology as Destiny

Hicks's conclusion is devastating for any attempt to ground FGM in revelation:

"The practice of infibulation can only occur in a 'closed' social system. In that context, it acts as a transition, or rite of passage, into the (female) adult collective. Moreover, and perhaps equally important, this transition is coupled to a reaffirmation, both of adult and parental authority, and the unity of the corporate social body."

The cut is not about religion. It is about the reproduction of social order in an environment where survival depends on the strictest control of women's bodies.

When the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ spoke of mercy, of kindness, of the prohibition of harm—he was speaking into a world that already had the cut. He did not command it. He did not endorse it. And the hadiths that later generations would use to justify it were weak, broken, and contradicted by the very principles of Islamic ethics.

The geography of the cut is the geography of survival—not of revelation. And as the environment changes, as nomads settle, as economies diversify, the cut may finally fade. But it will not fade because of laws alone. It will fade because the conditions that gave rise to it—the harsh deserts, the precarious migrations, the desperate need for alliances—are themselves fading.

Until then, the cut remains—not as a command of God, but as a scar of the earth itself, carved into the bodies of women by the logic of a world that had no other way to survive.

But survival is not the same as justice. And the Prophet came to bring justice, not just survival.

Section I.IV: The Late Antique Scientific World — When Medicine Sanctioned the Cut

I.IV.i The Medicalization of Control: How Doctors Became the Arbiters of Female Normality

The ancient Greco-Roman medical tradition did not invent clitoridectomy. It inherited it from Egypt, rationalized it, medicalized it, and—most importantly—gave it the language of science, pathology, and cure. What had been a ritual practice in the Nile Valley became, in the hands of Greek and Roman physicians, a surgical intervention for a "pathological" condition. The clitoris, a normal anatomical structure, was redefined as a potential deformity. Its enlargement—whatever "enlargement" meant—was framed as a disease requiring treatment. And the treatment was the knife.

The ancient medical sources on clitoridectomy are not clinical in any modern sense. They are moral documents disguised as medical texts. They speak of "ugliness," "shame," "turpitude," and "deformity." They express anxiety about female sexual pleasure—about women who desire sex "too much," who seek sex "actively," who might even experience erections like men. And they propose a solution: remove the organ that is the source of that pleasure.

This is not medicine. This is social control with a scalpel.

The historian Chiara Thumiger, in her analysis of these texts, makes a provocative argument: the scene of clitoridectomy, as described in the sources, is functionally equivalent to a form of sexual intercourse. The immobilized female body, the two male operators (a young, "robust" assistant holding the woman down, and the older surgeon performing the cut), the penetration of the genitals with instruments, the cutting, the bleeding—all of this, Thumiger argues, mimics and enacts dynamics of sexual domination.

The argument is not that the ancient physicians were "perverts." It is that their medical practice was embedded in a culture that viewed female bodies as objects to be controlled, female pleasure as something to be regulated, and female sexuality as a problem to be solved—often through invasive intervention. And the medical texts, with their clinical language and their detailed descriptions, gave this control the veneer of scientific legitimacy.

I.IV.ii The Axioms of Ancient Gynecological Medicine

To understand why clitoridectomy made sense to ancient physicians, we must understand the broader framework of ancient gynecology. Chiara Thumiger identifies several key axioms that governed the medical understanding of female sexuality in the Greco-Roman world:

Axiom 1: Sexual intercourse is a hygienic necessity for women of reproductive age.

In the Hippocratic and Galenic traditions, the female body was understood as fundamentally different from the male body—wetter, colder, more porous. Women were thought to accumulate female seed (semen) and other fluids that, if not regularly expelled through intercourse or pregnancy, could cause a range of diseases, from uterine suffocation to hysteria. Sex was not merely for pleasure or procreation; it was a medical requirement. As the Hippocratic treatise Diseases of Young Girls bluntly states: "I prescribe that virgins, when they suffer this ill, should as soon as possible go and live with a man."

Axiom 2: Female pleasure during intercourse is functionally important, but only as a means to reproduction.

Ancient physicians recognized that female pleasure was necessary for conception. They believed that the female produced seed (semen) and that her orgasm was required to "draw" the male seed into the womb. But this pleasure was not for the woman's benefit; it was for the reproductive outcome. A woman who enjoyed sex too much—or who sought sex independently—was a problem. A woman who derived pleasure from her clitoris, which could be stimulated without penetration, was an even greater problem.

Axiom 3: The female body is inherently "deficient" or "incomplete" compared to the male.

The Galenic model, which dominated ancient medicine, viewed female genitalia as the inversion of male genitalia. The ovaries were "testicles" kept inside the body because of the female's lack of heat; the vagina was an "inverted penis." This one-sex model, as Thomas Laqueur famously argued, meant that women were not a separate sex but imperfect men. An enlarged clitoris was not just a variation; it was a regression toward the male norm—a sign that the female body had failed to complete its proper development.

Axiom 4: Female sexual desire that is "excessive" or "active" is pathological and must be corrected.

The ideal woman was passive, modest, and sexually receptive but not proactive. Women who experienced strong sexual desire, who sought out intercourse, who might even take the active role—these women were diseased. Their condition was sometimes described as "female satyriasis" or grouped with the "tribades" (women who had sex with women). And the clitoris, as the organ of female sexual pleasure, was the physical locus of this pathology.

Axiom 5: The doctor has the authority—indeed, the duty—to intervene surgically to restore the female body to its "natural" state.

The ancient physician was not merely a healer; he was a moral arbiter. He decided what was "normal" and what was "deformed." He decided what size clitoris was acceptable. And he decided when the knife should be used. The patient's consent is never mentioned in these texts. The woman is an object to be acted upon, not a subject to be consulted.

I.IV.iii The Sources: Caelius Aurelianus, Mustio, Paul of Aegina, and Aetius of Amida

The ancient medical literature on clitoridectomy is late—mostly from the 5th to 7th centuries CE—but it reflects a much older tradition. Let us examine the key passages with the attention they deserve.

Caelius Aurelianus (5th century CE), Gynaecia 2.112

Caelius, a Latin translator and adapter of Soranus (1st-2nd century CE), describes the condition as one of "turpitude" (turpitudo):

"Some clitorises reach a horrifying size and fill women with confusion due to the ugliness/awfulness of these parts; and according to most authors, these women attain erections and feel a desire similar to that of men and agree to engage in a sexual act only if forced/under pressing compulsion."

Notice the key elements: the clitoris is "horrifying" and "ugly." The women are "confused" by their own bodies. They experience "erections" like men. They have a "desire similar to that of men." And they engage in sex only "under compulsion"—as if they must be forced, or as if they are driven by an uncontrollable impulse.

The medical problem is not pain or dysfunction. It is aesthetics and morality. The woman's body is judged ugly. Her desires are judged excessive. And the solution is surgical removal.

Mustio (5th/6th century CE), Gynaecia 2.76

Mustio, another Latin translator of Soranus, echoes Caelius:

"A large clitoris is a symptom/an instance of wickedness/foulness (turpitudo). Some maintain, to be sure, that that fleshy part can even experience erection in the same way as in men and as it were yearning for the act of coitus."

The language is damning. The clitoris is not just a physical anomaly; it is a symptom of wickedness. The woman's body is a moral problem. Her capacity for erection—which is not, in fact, limited to women with "enlarged" clitorises—is treated as a sign of perversion.

Paul of Aegina (7th century CE), Epitomae medicae 6.70

 Paul of Aegina, provides a concise summary:

"In certain women the clitoris is excessively large and presents a shameful deformity; as some authorities report, some women have erections in this part in the way men do, and have a drive towards intercourse."

Again, the themes recur: "shameful deformity," erections "in the way men do," a "drive towards intercourse" that is presented as pathological. Paul then describes the surgical removal of the "redundant portion."

Aetius of Amida (6th century CE), Libri Medicinales 16.95 (citing Philoumenos)

The most detailed and vivid account comes from Aetius, who attributes his description to Philoumenos, a physician from the 2nd or 3rd century CE. This passage deserves to be quoted at length:

"The so-called clitoris is a muscle- or skin-like compound structure situated above the point where the wings (of the female genitals) meet, in the place where the urinary meatus is located. In some individuals, it grows larger than is appropriate for women and tends towards unseemliness and shame. And furthermore, it is irritated when it is constantly rubbed by clothing, and it stimulates the impulse towards sexual intercourse. On that account, it seemed reasonable to the Egyptians to amputate the clitoris before it became too large, especially at the point when their girls were about to be married."

Aetius then describes the procedure in graphic detail:

"The girl should be placed in a chair, and a robust young man, standing behind her and placing his arms under the backs of her thighs, should hold her legs and her entire body. Standing opposite her and grasping the clitoris with wide-mouthed forceps, let the surgeon stretch it with his left hand, and cut it off with the right hand just along the teeth of the forceps."

This is not a description of a gentle, careful procedure. The woman is immobilized by a "robust young man." Her legs are held apart. Her genitals are exposed. A forceps clamps the clitoris. A knife cuts it off.

Thumiger's reading of this passage is incisive:

"The emphasis on immobilization, the position she is placed in, make this a distinctively pictorial piece. Most of all, the composition of the scene, with a robust young man immobilizing the woman and the (older male) operating doctor on the other side of her, produces a classic image of action on female bodies... It openly casts two male figures operating in total violence and with consent unknown, a form of penetrative intrusion and mutilation on the body of a woman of marriageable age, and doing so in obedience to some form of perceived necessity."

The sexual undertones are unmistakable. The "robust young man" (νεανίσκος εὔτονος)—a phrase that could describe a dancer or a lover—holds the woman in place. The surgeon penetrates her with instruments. Blood flows. The goal is to render her "marriageable"—to make her body acceptable to a husband.

Aetius also provides detailed post-operative care instructions, including the application of wine, vinegar, powders, and sponges, and a week of recovery. The procedure is serious, invasive, and dangerous. But it is presented as routine, necessary, and even beneficial.

I.IV.iv The Egyptian Attribution: Orientalism and the Construction of "Otherness"

It is striking that Aetius attributes the practice to the Egyptians. The Greeks and Romans had long viewed Egypt as a land of strange customs—where women urinated standing up and men squatted, where the Nile's floods defied reason, where the gods themselves had animal heads. Attributing clitoridectomy to the Egyptians served two purposes.

First, it distanced the practice from the Greek and Roman medical mainstream. Aetius could describe a brutal procedure without endorsing it as a routine part of Greek medicine. The Egyptians were "other"; their customs were exotic, extreme, perhaps even barbaric.

Second, it reinforced the stereotype of Egyptian women as sexually powerful, even "masculine." Herodotus had claimed that Egyptian women "go to market and engage in trade, while the men stay at home and weave." The idea of the "masculine" Egyptian woman—sexually assertive, economically independent—was a trope. Clitoridectomy, ironically, was the remedy: the aggressive, man-like woman had to be cut down to size.

But the attribution to Egypt also hints at the true origin of the practice. As we have seen, female genital cutting was indeed practiced in Egypt long before the Arab conquests. The Greek and Roman physicians were not inventing a new procedure; they were codifying and rationalizing an existing one. The cut was not Greek. It was not Roman. It was Egyptian.

I.IV.v The Rhetoric of "Deformity" and "Shame"

One of the most striking features of these medical texts is their reliance on aesthetic and moral judgments. The clitoris is described as "ugly" (foeditas), "shameful" (turpitudo), "unseemly" (ἀπρέπεια). The women are "confused" by their own bodies. The condition causes "shame."

This is not the language of objective medical description. It is the language of social stigma.

The ancient physicians were not measuring clitorises or establishing objective criteria for "enlargement." They were responding to a cultural ideal of female modesty and passivity. A woman with a prominent clitoris—a clitoris that might be visible, that might be stimulated by clothing, that might give her pleasure—was a woman who could not be easily controlled. The surgery was a way to discipline her body, to make it conform to the ideal.

The emphasis on "shame" is particularly telling. The woman is supposed to be ashamed of her own body. The physician, by removing the "offending" part, is supposed to relieve her of that shame. But the shame is not intrinsic; it is imposed. It is the shame of not fitting the norm—a norm defined by men, for men.

I.IV.vi The Sexualization of the Surgical Scene

Thumiger's most provocative contribution is her reading of the surgical scene as a form of sexual intercourse. She draws a parallel between the immobilization of the woman in Aetius's account and the depiction of women in Greek erotic art—for example, a vase painting from the Louvre showing a woman being held down by two men while they penetrate her mouth and vagina.

The analogy is not merely rhetorical. In both scenes, a woman is immobilized by male agents. In both scenes, her genitals are exposed and penetrated. In both scenes, there is an audience—the reader of the medical text, the viewer of the vase. In both scenes, the woman's pleasure or pain is irrelevant; what matters is the male gaze and the male action.

Thumiger writes:

"The act of anatomical correction, with its politics and normative purposes, emerges... as resembling or being functionally equivalent to a condensed form of sexual intercourse."

This is not to say that the ancient physicians were sexually aroused by the procedure. It is to say that the procedure was embedded in a culture that viewed female bodies as objects to be acted upon, and that the dynamics of that action—the immobilization, the penetration, the cutting—mirrored the dynamics of sexual domination.

The "robust young man" who holds the woman in place is not just a medical assistant. He is a stand-in for the husband—the man who will soon have access to her body. The surgeon is the agent of correction, the one who ensures that her body is ready for its marital function.

I.IV.vii The Broader Cultural Context: Sacrifice, Rape, and the Violated Female Body

Thumiger extends her analysis beyond medical texts to include literary and mythological examples. She notes the parallels between clitoridectomy and the sacrifice of Iphigenia in Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis:

"In this example... the victim is cast as somehow willing, the perpetrators as family and/or well-intentioned, or at least not hostile... and what is carried out as necessitated by external conditions. A comedy of benignity and necessity, so to speak, surrounds the event."

In the sacrifice scene, Iphigenia is held by men, her throat is exposed, and a knife is raised. She is a virgin, about to be "opened" by the blade—a bloody parody of defloration. The male audience watches.

She also cites Ovid's account of the rape of Philomela, where Tereus cuts out her tongue with a forceps—the same instrument used in clitoridectomy—to prevent her from revealing his crime:

"The aggressor does not merely use a knife for his 'operation', but precisely a surgical instrument."

Philomela's tongue is severed; the "root quivers." The analogy to the clitoris is explicit. And after the mutilation, Tereus rapes her again, and again, and again.

These literary examples, Thumiger argues, reveal a deep cultural script: the female body is subject to violent intrusion, justified by necessity, sanctified by ritual, or masked by medicine. The woman's consent is irrelevant, or performative. The male gaze is omnipresent. The knife, the forceps, the sword—all are instruments of control.

I.IV.viii The Modern Afterlife: Victorian Clitoridectomy and the Legacy of Ancient Medicine

The ancient medical tradition did not die with the fall of Rome. It was preserved, translated, and transmitted through the Islamic world and into medieval Europe. And in the 19th century, it experienced a bizarre resurrection.

The Victorian physician Isaac Baker Brown (1811–1873) performed clitoridectomies on English women to treat "hysteria," "epilepsy," and "mania." He believed that "unnatural irritation" of the clitoris caused these conditions, and that removal of the clitoris was the cure. He published a book, On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy, and Hysteria in Females, and performed the operation on hundreds of women—often without their full consent.

Baker Brown explicitly invoked the authority of the ancients. He claimed to be "re-introducing" a practice that had been known to the Greeks and Romans. He was, in a sense, correct: he was continuing a tradition that stretched back to Aetius and Philoumenos.

But the Victorian context was different. Baker Brown was not an ancient physician practicing in a world where female bodies were routinely objectified; he was a modern surgeon practicing in a world that was supposed to have moved beyond such barbarism. His exposure and expulsion from the Obstetrical Society of London in 1867 were a turning point. But the damage had been done.

The connection between ancient and modern clitoridectomy is not just historical; it is ideological. Both traditions view the clitoris as a problem, female pleasure as a threat, and surgical removal as a solution. Both traditions mask moral judgment in medical language. Both traditions treat women as objects, not subjects.

I.IV.ix The Axioms of the Scientific World: A Summary

Let us now distill the axioms of the late antique scientific world regarding female sexuality and clitoridectomy:

Axiom	Content	Implication
Axiom 1	Sexual intercourse is a hygienic necessity for women	Women's bodies require male intervention to remain healthy
Axiom 2	Female pleasure is functionally important only for reproduction	Pleasure for its own sake is pathological
Axiom 3	The female body is inherently "deficient" compared to the male	An enlarged clitoris is a regression toward the male norm—a deformity
Axiom 4	Excessive or active female sexual desire is pathological	The clitoris, as the organ of pleasure, must be controlled or removed
Axiom 5	The physician has the authority to define "normal" and "deformed"	Surgery is justified to restore the female body to its "natural" state
Axiom 6	The patient's consent is irrelevant	The woman is an object to be acted upon
Axiom 7	The surgical scene mimics sexual domination	The immobilized woman, the male agents, the penetration of instruments—all enact a script of control

I.IV.x The Scientific World Praised the Cut: But It Was Never Science

The ancient medical tradition praised clitoridectomy as a rational intervention, a cure for a "deformity," a way to restore women to their proper, passive, marriageable state. But it was never science in the modern sense. It was ideology dressed in clinical language. It was patriarchy with a scalpel.

The physicians who performed clitoridectomy were not motivated by a disinterested concern for women's health. They were motivated by a cultural ideal of female modesty, a fear of female sexual agency, and a desire to control women's bodies for the benefit of men.

The "science" of clitoridectomy was a pseudoscience—a rationalization of prejudice, a justification for violence. And its legacy persists, not only in the continued practice of FGM in parts of Africa and the Middle East, but also in the lingering belief that female pleasure is somehow dangerous, that women's bodies need to be regulated, that women's sexuality is a problem to be solved.

The cut was never about health. It was never about beauty. It was never about marriageability. It was about control. And the medical tradition, from the ancient Greeks to the Victorians, provided the language and the legitimacy for that control.

Section I.V: The Islamic Appropriation — How a Pre-Islamic Custom Became "Religious Duty"

I.V.i The Silence That Spoke Volumes: How Female Excision Entered Islamic Discourse

The Qur'an never mentions female circumcision. The authentic Sunnah never commands it. The Prophet never practiced it on his daughters. And yet, by the late medieval period, female excision had become—for a significant number of Muslims in Egypt, the Hijaz, and elsewhere—a practice defended as religiously mandated, justified by weak hadiths, and embedded in the very fabric of communal identity.

How did this happen? How did a pre-Islamic Egyptian custom—rooted in the control of female sexuality, documented by Greek physicians centuries before the birth of Muhammad—become accepted, defended, and even praised within certain circles of Islamic scholarship?

The answer lies not in revelation, but in accommodation. It lies in the process by which conquered peoples, converting to Islam, brought their customs with them—and then found, in the ambiguous spaces of Islamic law, the means to legitimate those customs. It lies in the willingness of jurists, particularly in Egypt, to accommodate local practice, to interpret weak hadiths as sufficient proof, and to frame female excision not as a foreign innovation but as a continuation of the prophetic fiṭrah.

The silence of the sources on female excision is not evidence of its absence—it is evidence of its acceptance. As the historian Jonathan P. Berkey notes, the very fact that medieval jurists discussed the practice at all, and that their discussions were overwhelmingly favorable, indicates that female excision had become, for many Muslims, a customary practice in need of religious justification—and the jurists obliged.

I.V.ii The Ambiguity of Khitan: How Language Masked the Cut

One of the most critical factors in the Islamic appropriation of female excision was linguistic. The Arabic word khitan (ختان) and its derivatives were used generically to refer to "circumcision" of both males and females. This ambiguity allowed later commentators to read female excision back into texts that originally referred only to male circumcision.

As Berkey observes:

"The word khitan was understood at an early stage to refer to the female's operation as well as the male's."

This linguistic slippage had profound consequences. A hadith that spoke of "when the two circumcisions meet" (idhā iltaqā al-khitānān)—referring to the meeting of the male and female genitals during intercourse—was understood by later jurists as proof that women were circumcised. The assumption was built into the language.

Ibn Qudama (d. 1223), the great Hanbali jurist, explicitly drew this conclusion:

"These hadith contain an indication that women were circumcised."

But the indication was not in the Prophet's words—it was in the readers' assumptions. The hadiths themselves do not command female excision. They simply assume it as a given among some communities. And that assumption, repeated over centuries, became self-fulfilling.

I.V.iii The Weak Hadiths: Building a Justification on Sand

The foundational hadith for female excision is weak (ḍa'īf) by classical standards of hadith criticism. It is transmitted by Abu Da'ud in his Sunan, who explicitly notes that its chain is "weak." The hadith reports that the Prophet said to a female circumciser in Medina, Umm 'Atiyyah:

"Do not destroy it completely [i.e., do not cut away too much], for that is more favorable for the woman and preferable for the husband."

The chain of this hadith is broken (munqaṭi'). It relies on narrators whose reliability is questioned. And yet, despite its weakness, it became the central proof text for those defending female excision in the medieval period.

Why? Because it served a purpose. In societies where female excision was already practiced—particularly in Egypt, where it had deep pre-Islamic roots—the jurists needed a religious justification. A weak hadith was better than no hadith. And the existence of any Prophetic statement, however dubious, was enough to tip the scales in favor of the practice.

Berkey notes the significance:

"The discourse within the juristic tradition... generally approved of female excision, and in some cases held it to be mandated by Islamic law."

The Shafi'i school, which predominated in Egypt, adopted the most strident position. Al-Nawawi (d. 1277), the great Shafi'i jurist, declared:

"With us, circumcision is required (wājib) for both men and women."

The Hanbali school followed a similar path. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350) described female excision as "a sign of the veneration [of God]" ('alam al-'ubūdiyya). Ibn Qudama held that it was "recommended as correct for women" (mustaḥabb), even if not strictly required.

Only the Maliki and Hanafi schools were more restrained. They generally held that female excision was a "noble deed" (makruma) rather than an obligation. But even they did not condemn it. And in practice, the Shafi'i position—which mandated the cut—carried enormous weight in Egypt, where the Shafi'i school was dominant.

I.V.iv The Fiṭrah Argument: Connecting the Cut to the Prophetic Model

One of the most effective strategies for legitimating female excision was to link it to the concept of fiṭrah—the primordial, natural disposition that Islam is said to perfect and preserve. A famous hadith lists five (or ten) practices as part of the fiṭrah, including circumcision (khitan), shaving the pubic hair, trimming the mustache, and paring the nails.

The term khitan in this hadith was ambiguous. Did it include female excision? Later commentators, particularly in Egypt, argued that it did. Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani (d. 1449) and al-Qastallani (d. 1517) explicitly included female excision within the scope of the fiṭrah traditions.

This was a hermeneutical choice, not a linguistic necessity. The hadiths on fiṭrah do not specify the nature of the circumcision. But by reading female excision into them, the jurists were able to claim that the practice was not a foreign innovation but a restoration of the primordial practice of the prophets—including Abraham, who is credited in Islamic tradition with instituting circumcision.

The link to Abraham was crucial. As Berkey notes, pre-Islamic poetry and early Islamic tradition associated male circumcision with Abraham. Female excision was then grafted onto this Abrahamic narrative. A tradition recorded by Ibn Qayyim relates that Sarah, jealous of Hagar, swore to cut off three "members" of her. Abraham, fearing she would cut off Hagar's ears and nose, ordered Sarah instead to pierce Hagar's ears and to "circumcise" her. After this, the practice became customary among women.

The story is apocryphal, and Ibn Qayyim himself noted that "only God knows the truth of the matter." But its existence reveals the lengths to which medieval scholars went to provide female excision with a prophetic pedigree.

I.V.v The Hisba Manuals: Popular Religion and the Enforcement of the Cut

The most revealing evidence for the medieval acceptance of female excision comes not from the formal legal literature but from the hisba manuals—guides for the muḥtasib, the market inspector charged with "commanding right and forbidding wrong."

Ibn al-Ukhuwwa (d. 1329), in his Egyptian hisba manual, wrote:

"Circumcision is a religious duty (farḍ wājib) required of men and women."

This is a striking statement. The hisba manuals were not theoretical legal treatises; they were practical guides for enforcing public morality. Their inclusion of female excision as a required duty indicates that, in the society for which they were written, the practice was not merely tolerated but actively enforced.

Ibn al-Ukhuwwa goes into remarkable detail about the procedure:

"As for the woman, the place of her circumcision is the skin which is at the highest [point] of the vulva, above the orifice from which urine exits... The cutting of the skin [which is] like a cock's comb ('urf al-dīk) is the place of circumcision, and one cuts away from the highest point of this skin."

He then cites the weak hadith of Umm 'Atiyyah, interpreting it to mean: "take the tip of the skin, do not uproot it."

This is not a description of a rare or optional practice. It is a prescription for a religious duty, to be supervised by the religious authorities. Ibn al-Ukhuwwa even discusses liability: if the surgeon harms the child during circumcision, he is liable—unless the imām oversees the operation, in which case the religious authority is not liable, "because [in such a case the patient] died during a required incision."

The implication is chilling. The state—or at least the religious establishment—was willing to assume responsibility for the harm caused by the cut, because the cut was deemed a religious obligation. The deaths of girls from the procedure were not a reason to question the practice; they were a cost of fulfilling a divine command.

I.V.vi The "Moderation" Argument: Controlling Sexuality Without Destroying Pleasure

The medieval defenders of female excision were not unaware of the tension inherent in their position. They recognized that the cut was intended to reduce female sexual desire—but they also recognized that a woman's desire was necessary for a healthy marriage. Al-Jahiz, the 9th-century polymath, captured this tension with characteristic wit:

"The woman who retains her clitoris (al-baẓrā') experiences pleasure that the circumcised woman does not. The original purpose of female circumcision was not to achieve beauty, but to seek a reduction in desire, so that chastity might be confined to them."

But then he added the crucial qualification:

"If a woman's passion decreases, enjoyment will disappear, and the love of the spouses will lessen, and the love of a spouse is a shackle against profligacy."

The solution, as al-Jahiz saw it, was moderation. The cut should reduce desire, but not eliminate it. The woman should be chaste, but not unresponsive. The husband should be satisfied, but not at the expense of his wife's complete sexual death.

This is the logic behind the Prophet's supposed injunction to "leave some of it." The weak hadith was interpreted as a call for a limited excision—one that would reduce the clitoris but not remove it entirely. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya explained:

"If the excision is a radical one, the woman will not desire sexual relations with her husband; consequently, he might well lose his respect for her."

The goal, then, was not to eliminate female pleasure but to calibrate it. The woman should feel enough desire to want her husband, but not so much that she would seek satisfaction elsewhere. The cut was a tool of patriarchal engineering—a way to ensure that female sexuality served male needs without threatening male honor.

I.V.vii The Spread of the Practice: Egypt, Arabia, and Beyond

Why did female excision become entrenched in some Muslim societies and not others? The answer lies in the pre-existing cultural landscape.

Egypt, with its ancient tradition of female excision, was the epicenter. The practice was already well established among Egyptians before the Arab conquests. When Egypt became predominantly Muslim, the practice did not disappear; it was simply given a new religious gloss. As Berkey notes:

"In Egypt, after all, the practice of female excision had a long history, with roots in pre-Islamic practice."

The Hijaz (western Arabia) also had a tradition of female excision, as evidenced by the hadith of Umm 'Atiyyah, who was from Medina. The practice was known among some Arab tribes, though it was never universal. Al-Jahiz asserted that circumcision had been practiced "among the Arabs on both women and men since the time of Abraham and Hagar up to our own day."

But in other regions—North Africa west of Egypt, Turkey, Central Asia, Iran, India—the practice was largely unknown. The reasons for this variation are complex, but they point to the same conclusion: female excision was not an Islamic practice. It was a pre-Islamic regional custom that some Muslim societies adopted and others did not.

The geographical distribution of the practice is itself a refutation of the claim that it is Islamic. If female excision were truly commanded by God or His Prophet, it would be practiced by Muslims everywhere. It is not. It is concentrated precisely in those regions—Egypt, Sudan, the Horn of Africa, parts of Arabia—where the practice existed before Islam.

I.V.viii The Shī'ī Parallel: The Same Hadiths, the Same Justifications

The Twelver Shī'ī tradition, which developed its own corpus of hadiths and its own legal methodology, arrived at the same conclusions as the Sunnis. A tradition ascribed to 'Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, the first Shī'ī imam, drew a clear distinction between the sexes:

"There is no objection if you do not circumcise a woman, but as for a man, it is required."

But other Shī'ī hadiths echoed the Sunni traditions. The Prophet's injunction to the female circumciser took a slightly different form in a Shī'ī chain, addressed to a woman named Umm Ḥabīb:

"If you perform the operation, do not crush [the clitoris] or uproot it, but rather take only a small portion (ashimmī), for that is easier for the woman [literally, 'it makes her face more radiant'] and more favorable for the husband."

The Shī'ī jurist al-Ḥillī (d. 1277), known as al-Muḥaqqiq al-Awwal, ruled that:

"The circumcision [of boys] is required, and the excision of girls is recommended (mustaḥabb)."

The convergence of Sunni and Shī'ī opinion on this issue is striking. Despite their profound disagreements on matters of law and theology, both traditions accommodated female excision in similar ways, using similar hadiths and similar legal reasoning. This convergence suggests that the practice was not a doctrinal import but a cultural one—a pre-existing custom that each tradition found a way to legitimate.

I.V.ix The Role of Women: The Sāni'a and the Secrecy of the Cut

One of the most distinctive features of female excision in the medieval Islamic world was its performance by women. The sāni'a (صانعة) was a female practitioner who performed circumcisions, along with tattooing and other cosmetic services. These women occupied an ambiguous social position: they were necessary for the practice, but they were also viewed with suspicion.

Ibn al-Ukhuwwa's hisba manual reveals the tension:

"Parents must ensure that their children are circumcised; if they do not, the imam must remind them of their duty."

But the actual performance of the cut was left to women. The sāni'a would enter the private quarters of homes, gaining access to women and girls in ways that male religious authorities could not. This access was a source of concern. These women were believed to be in a position to corrupt their clients, and they often acquired an unsavory reputation.

The secrecy that surrounded female excision—in contrast to the public celebration of male circumcision—is itself significant. Male circumcision was a public event, a rite of passage celebrated with feasts and parades. Female excision was private, hidden, almost shameful. Berkey notes:

"The accepted custom in the circumcision of males... is its public announcement and celebration; with females, the occasion should be concealed and kept from public scrutiny."

This secrecy is not the mark of a proud religious tradition. It is the mark of a practice that its own practitioners knew was vulnerable to criticism—a practice that required justification and concealment, not celebration and pride.

I.V.x The Medical Literature: When "Treatment" Became Mutilation

It is important to distinguish between the ritual practice of female excision and the medical procedure of clitoridectomy for pathological conditions. The Andalusian physician al-Zahrāwī (d. 1013) described the latter:

"The clitoris may, as a natural matter, grow until it becomes unsightly, and may even expand until it comes to resemble a man's penis, and impedes sexual intercourse," in which case, he concluded, it should be cut off.

This is a medical intervention for a specific condition—clitoral hypertrophy—not a ritual performed on all girls. The medieval medical literature, like its Greek and Roman predecessors, recognized that some women had enlarged clitorises that caused them difficulty. For those women, a limited clitoridectomy might be indicated.

But the ritual practice of female excision was not medical. It was performed on healthy girls, not on those with a pathological condition. It was performed as a rite of passage, a purification, a control mechanism—not as a cure. The medical literature cannot be used to justify the ritual practice, because the two were understood as different categories.

Nevertheless, the existence of the medical literature created a space for confusion. If clitoridectomy was sometimes necessary for health, then perhaps a limited form of it was beneficial for all women. This line of reasoning, though flawed, was influential.

I.V.xi The Role of the State: The Muḥtasib and the Enforcement of the Cut

The most disturbing evidence of the medieval acceptance of female excision comes from the role of the state in enforcing it. Ibn al-Ukhuwwa's hisba manual does not merely permit female excision; it mandates it. And it gives the imām—the religious authority—responsibility for ensuring that it is performed.

If parents neglect to circumcise their children, the imām must remind them of their duty. And if the child dies during a circumcision overseen by the imām, the imām is not liable for the death, "because [in such a case the patient] died during a required incision."

This is state-sanctioned mutilation. The religious establishment assumed responsibility for the harm caused by the cut, because the cut was deemed a religious duty. The deaths of girls—and boys—were acceptable losses in the service of God.

The hisba manuals are not theoretical texts; they are practical guides for the enforcement of public morality. Their inclusion of female excision as a required duty indicates that, in the society for which they were written, the practice was not merely tolerated but actively enforced by the authorities.

I.V.xii The Legacy: How a Pre-Islamic Custom Became "Islamic"

By the late medieval period, female excision had become, for many Muslims in Egypt and elsewhere, an accepted part of their religious identity. The practice was defended by jurists, enforced by the muḥtasib, and justified by weak hadiths and creative hermeneutics. The pre-Islamic Egyptian custom had been successfully accommodated within the framework of Islamic law.

But this accommodation was not inevitable. It was a choice—a choice made by jurists who valued local custom over textual rigor, who preferred to legitimate rather than challenge the practices of their societies.

The tragedy is that the choice could have been otherwise. The same jurists who defended female excision could have rejected it. They could have applied the same standards of hadith criticism to the Umm 'Atiyyah tradition that they applied to other weak reports. They could have concluded that the silence of the Qur'an and the weakness of the hadiths meant that the practice was not required—or even recommended.

But they did not. And their choices, repeated over centuries, created a legacy that continues to harm millions of girls today.

I.V.xiii The Summary: What the Medieval Evidence Teaches Us

Factor	Evidence	Implication
Linguistic ambiguity	Khitan used for both male and female circumcision	Allowed later readers to assume female excision was included in Prophetic traditions
Weak hadiths	The Umm 'Atiyyah tradition is ḍa'īf (weak)	Built a religious justification on unreliable foundations
Shāfi'ī influence	The Shāfi'ī school, dominant in Egypt, held excision to be wājib (required)	The most strident position was adopted in the region where excision was most entrenched
Fiṭrah argument	Excision linked to the primordial practice of the prophets	Provided a prophetic pedigree for a pre-Islamic custom
Hisba manuals	The muḥtasib was to enforce excision as a religious duty	The state sanctioned and enforced the practice
Women's role	The sāni'a performed the operation in private secrecy	The practice was hidden from public scrutiny
Medical confusion	Clitoridectomy for pathological conditions was conflated with ritual excision	Provided a pseudo-medical justification
Geographical variation	Excision practiced in Egypt and parts of Arabia, but not in Turkey, Iran, or Central Asia	The practice is regional, not universal—evidence that it is not Islamic

The medieval Islamic world did not inherit female excision from revelation. It inherited it from Egypt—from the Nile Valley, from the land of the Pharaohs, from a pre-Islamic custom rooted in the control of female sexuality. And then, through a combination of linguistic ambiguity, weak hadiths, and juristic accommodation, it was woven into the fabric of Islamic law in certain regions.

But it was never commanded by God. It was never practiced by the Prophet. And it is not required by Islam.

The cut was a custom—and customs can be changed.

Section I.VI: The Shared Custom — How Muslim and Christian Egyptians Both Practiced FGM, and Why It Was Never Islamic

I.VI.i The Fundamental Reality: A Practice Without Religious Boundaries

One of the most devastating proofs that female genital mutilation is not an Islamic practice is the simple, undeniable fact that for centuries, both Muslim and Christian Egyptians practiced it with equal frequency and identical justifications. If FGM were truly commanded by Islam, one would expect it to be practiced exclusively—or at least predominantly—by Muslims. But the historical and anthropological record shows the opposite: Coptic Christians in Egypt practiced FGM alongside their Muslim neighbors, using the same methods, citing the same reasons, and believing the same myths about its necessity.

As the distinguished ethnographer Otto Meinardus documented in his monumental 1967 study, "Mythological, Historical, and Sociological Aspects of the Practice of Female Circumcision among the Egyptians," the practice was universal among Egyptian women regardless of religion. Meinardus, a scholar of Christianity in the Middle East with decades of fieldwork experience, wrote with authority:

"In Egypt, both Muslims and Copts practised female circumcision. However, instead of attributing the origin of this practice to their Egyptian ancestors, the Copts maintained that it spread among the Christians on account of the 'victory of the circumcised', i.e. the Jews."

This is a critical observation. The Copts did not claim that the practice came from Christ or from the Bible. They claimed it came from the Jews—and ultimately, from the ancient Egyptians. They were preserving a cultural practice, not a religious commandment.

I.VI.ii The Coptic Origin Myth: Sarah, Hagar, and Ishmael

The Copts developed a fascinating origin myth to explain their adoption of female circumcision—a myth that explicitly ties the practice to the story of Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael, but not to Jesus or to any Christian scripture.

Meinardus quotes Michael, the 12th-century Metropolitan of Damietta, who gave the following explanation:

"After Sarah had driven away Hagar from her house and her son Ishmael with her, as the Law affirms, Hagar withdrew to Yathrib of the country of the Hijaz and to Faran. And Ishmael grew up, and God beautified him in the eyes of the women of the people of Yathrib, and they asked his mother to give him in marriage. And she said: 'We are a circumcised people, both the men and the women of us, and we do not marry, except with those like us.' And when they (the women) had circumcised themselves, Ishmael married them, and God fulfilled His promise to him, and granted to him twelve princes. And circumcision spread in that country and in that which was neighbouring to it, and it became firmly established among the Copts of Egypt when they witnessed the victory of God for the circumcised, namely the children of Israel. And when the Apostle Mark evangelised them, he did not disapprove it for them, and they continued it."

This narrative is extraordinary for several reasons:

Element	Significance
The story is from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament	Not from the New Testament or Christian teaching
The practice is attributed to Ishmael and the Arabs	Not to Moses, not to Jesus, not to the apostles
The Copts adopted it because they witnessed Jewish "victory"	A historical/cultural reason, not a theological command
Mark did not forbid it	Silence is not endorsement—and Mark was more concerned with evangelism than with abolishing local customs
The practice is pre-Christian	It existed in Egypt before Mark ever arrived

Meinardus himself recognized the significance of this Coptic origin story. He understood that the Copts were not claiming divine revelation for the practice—they were claiming cultural inheritance.

I.VI.iii The Virgin Mary as Circumcised: Theological Absurdity as Cultural Evidence

Perhaps the most striking evidence of how deeply embedded FGM was in Egyptian culture—regardless of religion—is the Coptic belief that the Virgin Mary herself was circumcised.

Meinardus reports:

"Upon inquiry, Copts from Upper Egypt (Tahta) have stated that certainly also Mary, the Virgin Mother and Theotokos (God-bearer), was circumcised, for to think of her as being uncircumcised would be to question whether she was really a woman."

This is theologically absurd. There is no Christian tradition, no biblical text, no patristic writing, no church council, and no liturgical text that ever suggests that Mary underwent female circumcision. The belief is purely a product of Egyptian cultural pressure—the assumption that a "real woman" must be circumcised was so powerful that it was retrojected onto the Mother of Jesus herself.

This proves that the practice was not driven by religious texts or doctrines. It was driven by cultural norms so deeply internalized that they overwrote even the most sacred figures of the tradition.

I.VI.iv The Missionary Crisis: When the Catholic Church Tried to Ban FGM and Failed

One of the most revealing episodes in the history of FGM in Egypt occurred in the 17th century, when Roman Catholic missionaries attempted to abolish the practice among the Copts who had converted to Catholicism. The story, preserved by the Scottish traveler James Bruce (1768–1773), is a devastating testament to the power of cultural pressure over religious doctrine.

Meinardus summarizes Bruce's account:

"When the Roman Catholic priests first settled in Egypt, they considered by mistake this excision of Cophtish women for a ceremony performed upon Judaical principles, which they forbade upon pain of excommunication that excision should be performed upon the children of parents who had become Catholics. The converts obeyed, the children grew up, and arrived at puberty, but the consequences of having obeyed the interdict were that the man found, by choosing a wife among Catholic Cophts, he subjected himself to a very disagreeable inconveniency, to which he had conceived an unconquerable aversion; and therefore he married a heretical wife, free from this objection, and with her he relapsed into heresy."

Let this sink in. Catholic converts obeyed the Church's ban on FGM. Their daughters grew up uncircumcised. But when those daughters reached marriageable age, Catholic men refused to marry them because they were not circumcised. The men preferred to marry "heretical" (non-Catholic) women who were circumcised, and they left the Catholic Church as a result.

The missionaries faced a crisis: their congregations were not growing; they were shrinking, because their women were deemed unmarriageable.

Bruce continues:

"The missionaries, therefore, finding it impossible that ever their congregation could increase, and that this accident frustrated their labours, laid their cause before the College of Cardinals de propaganda fide at Rome. These took it up as a matter of moment, which it really was and sent over visitors skilled in surgery, fairly to report upon the case as it stood. They, on their return, declared that the heat of the climate, or some other natural cause, did, in that particular nation, invariably alter the formation, so as to make a difference from what was ordinary in the sex in other countries; and that this difference occasions a disgust, which must impede the consequences for which matrimony was instituted."

The Vatican sent surgeons to investigate. The surgeons reported that Egyptian women's bodies were "different"—that they had a "deformity" that needed to be removed for marriage to be possible. This was, of course, pseudoscience—a convenient justification for a practice that the Church had tried to ban but could not enforce.

The final outcome is staggering:

"The College, upon this report, ordered a declaration being first made by the patient and her parents, that it was not done from Judaical intention, but because it disappointed the ends of marriage... that the imperfection was, by all manner of means, to be removed, so that Catholics, as well as the Copts in Egypt, undergo excision ever since."

The Catholic Church, which had initially banned FGM, reversed its position and permitted it—on the condition that it was not done for "Judaical" reasons but for "medical" and "marital" reasons. The Church effectively blessed the continuation of the practice among its Coptic converts, provided they framed it as a medical procedure rather than a religious ritual.

This is one of the most damning pieces of evidence against the claim that FGM is inherently "Islamic." If FGM were a distinctly Muslim practice, why would the Catholic Church—the very institution that sent missionaries to convert "schismatic" Copts—have allowed, and eventually permitted, the practice among its own communicants?

I.VI.v The Historical Record: Western Travelers Document Universal Practice

Meinardus compiled an exhaustive list of Western travelers and scholars who documented FGM in Egypt from the 18th and 19th centuries. Their reports all confirm the same reality: the practice was universal among both Muslim and Christian Egyptians, and it was a pre-marital rite, not a religious commandment.

Traveler/Scholar	Year	Observation
Carsten Niebuhr	1762	Female circumcision practiced in Cairo; young girls circumcised at age ten; women who perform the operation are called "sages-femmes"
James Bruce	1768–1773	All Egyptians, Arabians, and nations south of Africa undergo this operation before marriageable age; practiced from necessity to avoid a "deformity"
C. S. Sonnini de Manoncour	1777–1780	Ancient Egyptians transmitted the custom to their descendants; Turks in Rosetta said it was for aesthetic and moral reasons to subdue the temperament of girls
W. G. Browne	1792–1798	Excision of females "founded on physical causes" and "a matter of convenience"; not ordained by any "inspired legislator"
John Lewis Burckhardt	1813–1814	Daughters of Arabs south of Qena undergo excision at age three to six; slave girls also undergo operation
Eduard Rüppel	1822	All girls at approximately age eight submit to excision, which reduces susceptibility to sexual stimulation
Hermann Ludwig von Pückler-Muskau	1835	Operation removes "almost all natural feelings" among women

Notice the pattern. These observers—Protestant, Catholic, and secular—all recognized that the practice was Egyptian, not specifically Muslim or Christian. They noted its connection to marriage, to the control of female sexuality, and to deeply held cultural beliefs about purity and womanhood.

I.VI.vi The Theological Irony: Why Copts Practiced What Muslims Also Practiced

If FGM were an Islamic practice, why did Coptic Christians—who were not bound by Islamic law—practice it with equal fervor?

The answer is straightforward: FGM was an Egyptian practice, not an Islamic one. It predated Islam by millennia. It was embedded in the culture of the Nile Valley long before the Prophet Muhammad received revelation. When Egypt became predominantly Muslim after the Arab conquests, Muslims continued the practice—not because the Qur'an commanded it, but because it was simply what Egyptians did. When Egypt remained Christian (as the Copts did), they continued the practice for the same reason.

The Copts did not need the Qur'an to justify FGM. They had their own origin myth, their own cultural logic, and their own centuries of tradition. And the Catholic Church, after initially opposing the practice, eventually permitted it—proving that the practice could survive and thrive even under explicitly Christian religious authority.

Meinardus noted the Coptic explanation:

"The Copts share with the Muslims the view that the 'ideal woman' is a circumcised woman."

But this shared view is not evidence of Islamic origin. It is evidence of a shared Egyptian cultural heritage—a heritage that both religious communities inherited from their Pharaonic ancestors.

I.VI.vii The Modern Reality: A Practice in Decline, But Still Shared

In the modern era, FGM remains a problem in Egypt—but it is a problem for both Muslims and Copts. Meinardus noted that in the 1960s, the overwhelming majority of Egyptian women (both Muslim and Christian) were circumcised, though the practice was more common in rural areas than in cities like Cairo and Alexandria.

Contemporary studies confirm this pattern. The 2015 Egypt Health Issues Survey (EHIS) found that:

• 87% of ever-married women aged 15–49 had been circumcised

• The practice was nearly universal among both Muslim (87%) and Christian (85%) women

• The highest rates were in rural Upper Egypt, where both Muslim and Christian populations are concentrated

The numbers do not lie. The practice is not significantly different between Muslims and Christians. If FGM were an Islamic obligation, one would expect near-100% rates among Muslims and much lower rates among Christians. But the rates are virtually identical.

The only honest conclusion is that FGM is an Egyptian cultural practice, not an Islamic religious one.

I.VI.viii The Myth of "Islamic" FGM: How the Practice Was Misattributed

How did FGM come to be associated with Islam if it was practiced by Christians and Muslims alike? The answer lies in the geography of Islam and the accidents of colonial observation.

Islam spread across North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and into sub-Saharan Africa—the very regions where FGM was already practiced. European travelers and colonial administrators, observing Muslim populations practicing FGM, assumed that the practice was Islamic in origin. They did not know—or did not care to investigate—that Coptic Christians in Egypt, who were not Muslim, practiced it as well. They did not know that FGM was absent in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, and in other core Islamic lands.

The association of FGM with Islam is a product of European colonialism, not of Islamic scripture. Colonial administrators saw Muslim Africans practicing FGM and assumed that Islam was the cause. They did not ask whether Christians in the same region practiced it. They did not ask whether the practice existed before Islam. They simply assumed.

And that assumption has been repeated uncritically for over a century.

I.VI.ix The Implications: What This Means for the "Islamic" Claim

The evidence assembled by Meinardus and others leads to an inescapable conclusion:

Claim	Reality
"FGM is an Islamic practice"	False. Both Muslim and Christian Egyptians practiced it with equal frequency
"The Qur'an commands FGM"	False. The Qur'an is silent on the subject
"The Prophet commanded FGM"	False. The hadiths cited are weak, and even they do not command full excision
"FGM is necessary for a woman to be pure"	False. Coptic Christians had no concept of "Islamic purity" yet practiced it
"FGM is unique to Muslim societies"	False. It is found in Christian communities in Egypt and elsewhere

The practice was never about religion. It was about culture—about controlling female sexuality, ensuring pre-marital virginity, and preparing girls for marriage. And it was a culture that both Muslims and Christians in Egypt inherited from their Pharaonic ancestors.

I.VI.x The Final Verdict: A Shared Egyptian Heritage, Not an Islamic Commandment

Otto Meinardus's 1967 study remains one of the most important works on FGM in Egypt because it documented, with meticulous care, the shared nature of the practice. He showed that:

1. The practice had mythological origins in ancient Egyptian beliefs about bisexuality and the need to remove "masculine" parts from women.

2. It was documented in Pharaonic Egypt, in Greek and Roman sources, and in early Christian texts.

3. It was practiced by both Muslims and Copts, with identical justifications and methods.

4. The Copts developed their own origin myth to explain the practice—one that had nothing to do with Jesus or the New Testament.

5. Even the Catholic Church, after initially opposing the practice, permitted it because the cultural pressure was too strong to resist.

The cut was never commanded by God. It was never commanded by the Prophet. It was never unique to Islam. It was a pre-existing Egyptian practice—rooted in ancient beliefs about female sexuality, reinforced by centuries of tradition, and shared by both Muslim and Christian communities.

And it is time to name it for what it is: a cultural mutilation, not a religious obligation; a tradition that harms, not a commandment that heals; a practice that both Muslims and Christians inherited, and that both must now abandon.

Section I.VII: The Theocentric Revolution — How the Qur'an and Sunnah Systematically Refute the Axioms Behind FGM

Before we descend into the hadith literature—where the weak narrations on female genital cutting reside—we must first understand a more fundamental truth: the Qur'an and the authentic Sunnah, in their core ethical and theological vision, render every single justification for FGM null and void. The practice cannot be properly understood, let alone dismantled, unless we first recognize that it rests on a set of axioms about female sexuality, female moral agency, and the purpose of marriage that are the very opposite of what Islam revealed.

The scholars who have traced this intellectual history—Pernilla Myrne, Hina Azam, Kecia Ali, Jonathan Berkey, and others—have shown that the early Islamic community inherited a proprietary view of female sexuality from the Late Antique world. This view held that a woman's sexuality was a commodity, owned either by her male kin (if she was free and unmarried) or by her husband (if she was married) or by her master (if she was enslaved). Its purpose was reproduction and male pleasure. Its danger was that it was excessive and needed to be controlled. And its control required surveillance, restriction, and sometimes surgical alteration.

But the Qur'anic revelation introduced something radically new: a theocentric view of sexuality. In this view, each individual—male or female, free or slave—is a moral agent directly accountable to God for their actions. Sexuality is not a commodity to be owned or traded; it is a trust from God, to be exercised within the boundaries (ḥudūd) He has set. And the most fundamental boundary is this: no person may be coerced into sexual activity. Coercion lifts liability. The victim is innocent before God and before the law.

This chapter will lay the theological and ethical foundation for our examination of the FGM hadiths. We will see how the Qur'an and authentic Sunnah:

1. Establish women as full moral agents – responsible for their own sins and rewards, not mediated through male guardians.

2. Reject the proprietary model of female sexuality – affirming that a woman's body is her own, and that sexual access requires her free consent.

3. Condemn the notion that female desire is inherently excessive or dangerous – instead presenting mutual affection (mawadda) and mercy (raḥma) as the foundation of marriage.

4. Prohibit all forms of bodily harm – establishing the principle of lā ḍarar wa lā ḍirār (no harm inflicted nor reciprocated) as a foundational maxim.

5. Affirm that coercion negates moral and legal responsibility – the victim of force is innocent, and the perpetrator alone bears guilt.

Once we understand this theocentric framework, we will see why the weak hadiths on FGM cannot stand. They are not merely narratively weak—they are theologically impossible, because they contradict the very core of what Islam revealed about women, sexuality, and bodily integrity.

The cut was never commanded. But more than that: the logic that sustained the cut was the very logic that Islam came to destroy.

I.VII.i The Proprietary Model vs. The Theocentric Model: Two Competing Visions of Female Sexuality

Hina Azam, in her magisterial study Sexual Violation in Islamic Law, identifies two competing conceptions of sexuality that were current in the Late Antique Near East and that profoundly influenced Islamic legal writers.

The first, the "proprietary approach," was embraced by many ancient societies. In this conception:

"A woman's sexuality is regarded as a commodity, belonging to the male kin or husband. When a woman was married off, the groom typically paid a bridewealth to her father or other male kin. Bridewealth was the price for her sexual, and thereby reproductive, availability."

The proprietary model had deep roots in the ancient world. It treated a woman's body as property—owned by her father, transferred to her husband, and compensated when violated. The victim of sexual violence was not the woman herself, but the male owner of her sexuality. Her consent was irrelevant; what mattered was whether the owner's property rights had been violated.

The second conception, which Azam calls the "theocentric approach," came to the Near East with the monotheistic religions, especially Christianity, and was embraced by Islam:

"According to the second conception, sexuality is governed by divine law. Each individual, regardless of gender, is a moral agent accountable to God for her or his actions. Consequently, the woman, not her kin, is also the 'owner' of her sexuality, as she is accountable to God for what she does with it."

This is the seismic shift. In the theocentric model, a woman is not property. She is a moral agent, directly answerable to God. Her sexuality is not a commodity to be traded; it is a trust for which she is personally responsible. And her consent—or its absence—becomes legally and theologically meaningful, because she is the one who will stand before God and account for her choices.

Azam notes that the proprietary sexual ethics was not altogether discarded in Islam. It survived in the practices of marriage and slave concubinage, where a woman's sexual availability was still seen as a commodity for which compensation was paid. The mahr (dower) paid to the bride is an indication of this survival, even if the price is paid to the bride and not her kin.

But the tension between these two models—proprietary and theocentric—was never fully resolved. And it is in this tension that practices like FGM found their justification. For if a woman's sexuality is a commodity to be controlled, and if her desire is inherently excessive and dangerous, then cutting her body to reduce that desire becomes a logical—if brutal—solution.

The Qur'an and authentic Sunnah, however, consistently push toward the theocentric pole. They affirm women as moral agents, reject the commodification of their bodies, and establish mutual affection and mercy as the foundation of marriage. And it is to these affirmations that we now turn.

I.VII.ii Women as Moral Agents: The Qur'anic Affirmation of Individual Responsibility

The Qur'an is unequivocal: women are moral agents, directly accountable to God for their actions, just as men are. There is no mediation, no hierarchy of spiritual worth, no discounting of female virtue.

Qur'an 4:124 states:

"And whoever does righteous deeds, whether male or female, while being a believer—those will enter Paradise and will not be wronged, [even as much as] the speck on a date seed."

The condition for Paradise is belief and righteous deeds—not gender, not obedience to a male guardian, not the satisfaction of a husband. A woman's salvation is her own, earned through her own relationship with God.

Qur'an 33:35 lists eleven pairs of virtues, explicitly affirming that men and women are equally capable of each:

"Indeed, the Muslim men and Muslim women, the believing men and believing women, the obedient men and obedient women, the truthful men and truthful women, the patient men and patient women, the humble men and humble women, the charitable men and charitable women, the fasting men and fasting women, the men who guard their private parts and the women who do so, and the men who remember Allah often and the women who do so—for them Allah has prepared forgiveness and a great reward."

The grammatical structure is deliberate and devastating to any patriarchal reading. Each virtue is paired, male and female, before the reward is announced in the collective plural: for them (لَهُم). Women are not secondary recipients of divine grace; they are primary and equal subjects.

Azam notes that this theocentric framework made women "moral agents responsible for their deeds before God and the law." A man who violated a woman had not simply utilized an inanimate object or usurped another's property; he had violated another human subject, one engaged in her own individual relationship with the Lord.

This is the foundation of Islamic sexual ethics. And it is the direct refutation of the proprietary logic that underpins FGM. If a woman is a moral agent accountable to God, then her body is not her father's property, her desire is not a threat to be surgically eliminated, and her consent is not a legal fiction.

I.VII.iii The Qur'anic Rejection of the "Excessive Female Desire" Myth

One of the central justifications for FGM, as we saw in the previous sections, was the belief that women have "excessive" sexual desire that must be controlled. Aetius of Amida wrote that the clitoris "stimulates the impulse towards sexual intercourse," and al-Jahiz claimed that uncircumcised women are more prone to fornication because they get more pleasure from sex.

But the Qur'an nowhere endorses this view. On the contrary, it presents male and female desire as symmetrical—both to be channeled into lawful marriage, both to be satisfied within the bounds set by God.

Qur'an 2:187 describes spouses as "garments for each other" (هُنَّ لِبَاسٌ لَّكُمْ وَأَنتُمْ لِبَاسٌ لَّهُنَّ). The garment metaphor implies mutual protection, mutual comfort, mutual intimacy, and mutual adornment. It is not a one-way street of male satisfaction and female submission.

Qur'an 30:21 goes further:

"And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquility in them, and He placed between you affection (مَوَدَّة) and mercy (رَحْمَة)."

The purpose of marriage is tranquility (سَكَن), affection (مَوَدَّة), and mercy (رَحْمَة)—not the management of female desire. There is no hint here that the wife's sexuality is a problem to be solved or a danger to be neutralized.

As Pernilla Myrne observes in her study of early Islamic writings on female sexuality, "the notion of women's superior sexual appetite was widespread in the early medieval Islamic world." But this notion was inherited from Late Antiquity, not derived from the Qur'an. And it sat in tension with the Qur'an's emphasis on mutual affection and mercy.

Myrne notes that "some accounts, considered Prophetic traditions by a number of scholars, maintain that women have much more sexual appetite than men have, and others emphasise men's moral duty to please their wives." The jurists, however, chose to largely disregard this moral duty when they outlined the legal marriage system.

The point is this: the belief that women's desire is excessive and dangerous is not a Qur'anic teaching. It is a pre-Islamic, Late Antique belief that was absorbed into certain strands of Islamic discourse—and that provided the ideological justification for practices like FGM. The Qur'an itself, read without the lens of later patriarchal jurisprudence, affirms mutual desire, mutual pleasure, and mutual responsibility.

I.VII.iv The Prohibition of Bodily Harm: Lā Ḍarar wa Lā Ḍirār

One of the most fundamental principles of Islamic law is the Prophetic maxim: Lā ḍarar wa lā ḍirār—"There shall be no harm inflicted nor reciprocated." This maxim is recorded in multiple collections, including the Muwaṭṭa' of Imām Mālik and the Sunan of Ibn Mājah, and is considered a foundational rule of Islamic jurisprudence.

The principle is simple: any act that causes harm is prohibited. And FGM—which removes healthy tissue, causes chronic pain, leads to infections and complications, and permanently diminishes sexual function—is quintessentially harmful.

The Qur'an reinforces this principle in multiple verses. It commands believers not to "throw yourselves into destruction" (2:195). It prohibits "corruption on earth" (2:205). It instructs believers to "do good" (إِحْسَان) in all their affairs (2:195). And it repeatedly emphasizes that God desires ease, not hardship (2:185).

The Prophet himself never struck a woman. As ʿĀ'ishah famously testified: "The Messenger of Allah never struck anything with his hand—not a woman, nor a servant." (Muslim 2328). The Prophet who never struck a woman would never have sanctioned the cutting of her genitals.

The harm principle is absolute. And FGM, by any measure, is harm.

I.VII.v Coercion Lifts Liability: The Victim Is Innocent

One of the most profound contributions of the Qur'anic-Prophetic revelation was the principle that coercion negates moral and legal responsibility. This principle is articulated in a famous hadith, recorded by Ibn Mājah and others:

"Indeed, Allah has lifted from my Ummah: mistakes, forgetfulness, and what they are coerced into." (إِنَّ اللَّهَ وَضَعَ عَنْ أُمَّتِي الْخَطَأَ وَالنِّسْيَانَ وَمَا اسْتُكْرِهُوا عَلَيْهِ)

This hadith is the theological foundation for the Islamic legal doctrine that rape victims are not to be punished for zina. If a woman is coerced, the act is not counted against her. The pen is lifted. The guilt belongs solely to the coercer.

Azam emphasizes that this principle was critical to the development of Islamic rape law: "The positing of the individual as the subject of the divine address and the unit of moral action and evaluation, and an emphasis not only on external acts but also on interior dispositions—that is, on matters of volition."

If a woman is cut—if her clitoris is removed without her consent—that is coercion. She did not choose it. She was forced. And the same principle that absolves a rape victim of guilt should apply to a girl who was cut as a child. She is not complicit in her own mutilation.

But the problem is deeper: FGM is usually performed on girls who are too young to consent. And the hadith also states that the pen is lifted from the minor until she reaches maturity. A child cannot consent to the removal of a healthy organ. The procedure is, by definition, a violation of her bodily integrity—and the one who performed it bears the guilt.

I.VII.vi Marriage as Mawadda and Raḥma, Not Milk (Ownership)

Perhaps the most critical refutation of the logic behind FGM is the Qur'an's redefinition of marriage. In the proprietary model that dominated Late Antiquity, marriage was a transaction in which a woman's sexuality was owned (مِلْك) by her husband. The term milk is the same word used for ownership of slaves. And the husband's right to sex was, accordingly, a right of ownership, not mutual consent.

Myrne traces this proprietary logic through the legal tradition: "The payment of a marriage gift gave men authority (مِلْك) over the wife's sexual availability." She quotes Kecia Ali's observation that "the exchange of monetary compensation for the wife's sexual capacity does not end with the mahr." The husband's maintenance of his wife is "obligatory only as long as she is sexually available to him."

But the Qur'an itself uses a different vocabulary. It does not describe marriage as milk (ownership), but as mīthāq ghalīẓ (a solemn covenant) (4:21). It describes spouses as libās (garments) for one another (2:187). It describes the bond between them as mawadda (affection) and raḥma (mercy) (30:21).

This is not the language of ownership. It is the language of mutuality, covenant, and mercy. And it directly contradicts the proprietary logic that would justify cutting a woman's genitals to "control" her desire or "ensure" her chastity.

As Azam shows, the tension between the proprietary and theocentric models was never fully resolved in Islamic law. The jurists retained elements of both. But the Qur'an's own voice is clear: marriage is not a contract of ownership; it is a covenant of mutual love and mercy. And a covenant of mutual love and mercy does not require—or permit—the mutilation of one party for the benefit of the other.

I.VII.vii The Failure of Later Jurists: The Reassertion of Proprietary Ethics

Why, then, did practices like FGM persist in some Muslim societies? Why did the theocentric vision of the Qur'an not triumph over the proprietary logic of Late Antiquity?

The answer lies in the complex history of Islamic legal formation. As Myrne, Azam, and others have shown, the early Islamic community inherited a rich and contradictory set of ideas about female sexuality from the cultures that surrounded it. Some of these ideas—like the belief that women have excessive sexual desire—were absorbed into Islamic discourse and treated as "knowledge," even when they contradicted the Qur'an's own emphases.

Myrne notes that "the number of Prophetic traditions increased dramatically from the beginning of the second/eighth century," and that "these 'sound' hadiths became increasingly important for the Islamic sciences." But not all of these hadiths were authentic. And even among the authentic ones, the jurists chose which to emphasize and which to disregard.

The hadith that emphasized women's right to sexual satisfaction, Myrne observes, "did not make it into the canonical collections" and "did not guide legal writing on marriage in the formative era of Islamic law." Instead, the jurists "chose to disregard the few hadiths that supported women's sexual rights and gave explicit priority to men's rights."

This was a choice. It was not forced by the Qur'an or by authentic Prophetic teaching. It was a choice to privilege the proprietary model over the theocentric model, to prioritize male control over female autonomy, and to absorb the patriarchal assumptions of Late Antiquity into the fabric of Islamic law.

FGM is one of the consequences of that choice. It is not a command of God or His Prophet. It is a relic of a worldview that Islam was supposed to replace—but that, in some times and places, reasserted itself with devastating effect.

I.VII.viii The Authentic Sunnah: The Prophet's Treatment of Women

Finally, we must look to the authentic Sunnah—the actual practice of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ—as the living refutation of FGM. The Prophet who:

• Never struck a woman (Muslim 2328)

• Commanded kindness to women in his Farewell Sermon: "I enjoin you to treat women well"

• Sought the counsel of his wives on matters of state

• Playfully raced ʿĀ'ishah in the desert

• Praised women as "the most beloved of things" in this world (Nasā'ī)

...this Prophet would never have commanded the cutting of their genitals.

The authentic Sunnah is a record of respect, kindness, and partnership. It is the living embodiment of the Qur'an's vision of marriage as mawadda and raḥma. And it contains no authentic command to perform female genital cutting.

The few hadiths that mention FGM, as we will see in Section II, are all weak in their chains of transmission, contradicted by stronger evidence, and rejected by the most rigorous hadith critics. They are not the Sunnah. They are the remnants of pre-Islamic customs that were mistakenly attributed to the Prophet.

The authentic Sunnah, properly understood, is a complete refutation of every justification for FGM.

I.VII.ix Summary: What the Qur'an and Sunnah Actually Teach

Justification for FGM	Qur'anic/Sunnah Response
Women have excessive sexual desire	Nowhere affirmed in Qur'an; marriage is based on mutual affection and mercy (30:21)
Female desire must be controlled	Spouses are garments for each other (2:187)—mutual, not one-way
The clitoris stimulates illicit desire	The Qur'an does not single out female anatomy as problematic; it commands both genders to guard their chastity (24:30-31)
Cutting reduces promiscuity	Chastity is a matter of faith and accountability, not surgical alteration
It is hygienic/purifying	The Qur'an emphasizes spiritual purity (ṭahārah), not physical alteration
The Prophet commanded it	No authentic hadith commands FGM; the few narrations are weak and rejected by leading critics
It is a "noble deed" (makrama)	The authentic Sunnah is kindness, not cutting; mercy, not mutilation

The Qur'an and authentic Sunnah provide no support for FGM. They provide every reason to reject it.

I.VII.x The Path Forward: Restoring the Theocentric Vision

The tragedy of FGM is not that Islam commands it. The tragedy is that Muslims absorbed a pre-Islamic, proprietary view of female sexuality and then projected it onto Islam—using weak hadiths, questionable juristic reasoning, and cultural inertia to justify a practice that the Qur'an and Prophet never endorsed.

The path forward is not to "reform" Islam, but to restore it. To return to the theocentric vision of the Qur'an, where each individual is a moral agent accountable to God. To reject the proprietary logic that treats women's bodies as commodities to be controlled and altered. To embrace the authentic Sunnah of kindness, mercy, and respect.

The cut was never commanded. The justifications for it are not Islamic. And the time has come to say, with clarity and conviction: FGM is a violation of the Qur'an, the Sunnah, and the very principles of mercy and justice that Islam was revealed to establish.

Section I Conclusion: From the Nile to the World — What the Ancient Evidence Teaches Us Before We Confront the Hadiths

I.C.i The Journey Completed: What We Have Uncovered

We have traveled across three millennia of human history—from the banks of the Nile to the clinics of Alexandria, from the temple inscriptions of the Middle Kingdom to the medical encyclopedias of Roman physicians, from the ethnographic observations of Greek geographers to the frank admissions of medieval Arab scholars. And at every stop along this journey, the evidence has spoken with a single, unmistakable voice: Female Genital Mutilation is not an Islamic practice. It is a pre-Islamic, ancient Egyptian practice that was absorbed into certain Muslim societies—but never into Islam itself.

The evidence we have surveyed is overwhelming and multi-layered:

Category	Evidence	Conclusion
Literary Evidence	Strabo (1st c. BCE) observed Egyptians "excise the females" as a distinctive custom	The practice was already ancient when the Greeks encountered it
Medical Evidence	Aetius of Amida (6th c. CE) described clitoridectomy as an Egyptian pre-marital practice, citing Philumenus (2nd-3rd c. CE)	The procedure was medicalized, surgical—not crude or folkloric—but its purpose was control of female desire, not health
Papyrological Evidence	P. Lond. I 24 (163 BCE) records a girl named Tathemis needing circumcision "as is the custom among the Egyptians" before marriage	The practice was tied to marriageability, not religious obligation
Hieroglyphic Evidence	Coffin Text spell 1117 (c. 1991–1786 BCE) refers to an "uncircumcised girl"	Female circumcision existed in Egypt nearly two millennia before Islam
Archaeological Evidence	Mummy examinations show no infibulation; the practice was clitoridectomy, not the more severe form	"Pharaonic circumcision" is a misnomer; the ancient Egyptian practice was milder
Geographic Evidence	The practice spread from Egypt via the Nile corridor, Red Sea coast, and trade routes	FGM followed trade, not revelation
Motivational Evidence	Aetius, al-Jahiz, and others explicitly state the purpose: to reduce female sexual desire and ensure chastity	The cut was never about health—it was about control
Theocentric Refutation	The Qur'an affirms women as moral agents, marriage as mutual mercy, and the prohibition of harm	Every justification for FGM contradicts core Islamic principles

I.C.ii The Unbroken Thread: From Pharaohs to Physicians

The ancient Egyptians did not need a divine command to cut their daughters. They did it because it was their custom—a custom rooted in the belief that female desire was dangerous, that the clitoris stimulated illicit impulses, and that a woman's chastity was her family's most valuable asset. The practice was pre-Islamic, pre-Christian, pre-Jewish. It belonged to the Nile, not to revelation.

The Greeks and Romans observed it with a mixture of fascination and horror. Strabo noted it as a distinctive Egyptian custom. Aetius of Amida described the surgical procedure in precise detail—the forceps, the scalpel, the young man restraining the girl's legs, the postoperative care with wine and vinegar and calamine powder. He was not describing a religious ritual; he was describing a surgical procedure performed for social and moral reasons.

The medieval Arab scholars inherited this legacy. Al-Jahiz, writing in the 9th century CE, defended the practice on the grounds that it reduced female desire and thereby preserved chastity. He cited the anecdote of a judge who claimed to have surveyed a village and found that circumcised women were more chaste than uncircumcised ones—an anecdote that is not evidence but ideology dressed as observation.

But al-Jahiz also preserved something else: the voice of resistance. He noted that "a noble man at our place" told the circumciser: "Do not cut off more than what is visible." Even among its defenders, there was debate. Even among its practitioners, there was unease. The cut was never monolithic, never uncontested, never universal.

I.C.iii The Menu of False Justifications

Throughout this investigation, we have encountered a recurring set of justifications for FGM. Each one, when examined against the evidence of history and the teachings of Islam, collapses:

Justification	Reality
"It is Islamic"	The Qur'an never commands it; the hadiths are weak; the practice predates Islam by millennia
"It reduces excessive female desire"	Modern medicine shows it reduces satisfaction, not desire; the notion of "excessive" female desire is a cultural construct, not a biological fact
"It ensures virginity before marriage"	Virginity is not determined by the clitoris; the hymen is the only tissue associated with first intercourse, and even that is an unreliable marker
"It prevents promiscuity"	Promiscuity is a matter of character, not anatomy; circumcised women are as capable of infidelity as uncircumcised women
"It is hygienic"	It causes chronic infections, scarring, and complications; it is the opposite of hygienic
"It is a noble deed (makrama)"	The authentic Sunnah is kindness, not cutting; the Prophet never praised this practice
"It pleases the husband"	The husband's pleasure does not justify the wife's mutilation; marriage is mutual affection and mercy, not unilateral satisfaction
"It is tradition"	Tradition is not revelation; harmful traditions must be abandoned

The menu of motivations is a menu of falsehoods. Not one of these justifications withstands scrutiny.

I.C.iv The Theocentric Refutation: What Islam Actually Teaches

Before we ever examine the hadiths on FGM, we must recognize that the core ethical and theological vision of Islam renders every justification for the practice null and void.

Islam teaches that women are moral agents, directly accountable to God for their actions. Qur'an 4:124: "Whoever does righteous deeds, whether male or female, while being a believer—those will enter Paradise." No mediation, no hierarchy, no discounting of female virtue.

Islam teaches that marriage is a covenant of mutual affection and mercy. Qur'an 30:21: "And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquility in them, and He placed between you affection (mawadda) and mercy (raḥma)." Not ownership, not control, not the management of female desire.

Islam teaches that spouses are garments for each other. Qur'an 2:187: "They are garments for you, and you are garments for them." Garments protect, adorn, and comfort. They are not property to be altered.

Islam teaches the absolute prohibition of harm. The Prophet ﷺ declared: "There shall be no harm inflicted nor reciprocated" (lā ḍarar wa lā ḍirār). FGM is harm. It is harm to the body, harm to the psyche, harm to the capacity for pleasure, harm to the very dignity of the human person.

Islam teaches that coercion lifts liability. The Prophet ﷺ said: "Allah has lifted from my Ummah: mistakes, forgetfulness, and what they are coerced into." A girl who is cut as a child is coerced. She is not complicit. The guilt belongs to those who cut her—not to her, and not to the religion that never commanded the cut.

The theocentric refutation is complete. Every pillar of the FGM justification—the proprietary view of female sexuality, the belief in excessive female desire, the notion that women's bodies require surgical alteration to be "pure" or "chaste"—is contradicted by the Qur'an and authentic Sunnah.

I.C.v The Historical Verdict: From the Nile to the World

The cut began on the Nile. It was carved into stone in the coffin texts of the Middle Kingdom, observed by Greek travelers in the Ptolemaic era, described by physicians in the age of Justinian. It spread from Egypt along the Nile corridor into Sudan, across the Red Sea into the Arabian Peninsula, and along caravan routes into sub-Saharan Africa. It followed trade, not revelation. It was carried by custom, not by command.

The reasons given for the cut were never medical. They were social, moral, and ideological: to control female desire, to ensure virginity before marriage, to preserve family honor, to make women "pure" for their husbands. The cut was never about health. It was always about control.

The medical profession, from Aetius to al-Jahiz, participated in this ideology. They described the clitoris as a "deformity," a source of "shame," a stimulus to "excessive desire." They prescribed surgery as a cure for a condition that was not a disease—a condition that was, in fact, a normal, healthy, God-given part of the female body.

But the medical profession also preserved the truth. In the precise descriptions of the procedure, in the warnings not to cut too deeply, in the recognition that the clitoris could be stretched and that too much cutting could cause a "urinary fistula," the physicians inadvertently documented that they were removing a real, functional, sensitive organ—not a superfluous piece of skin.

And the Islamic tradition, in its authentic core, refuted every justification. The Qur'an affirmed women as moral agents. The Prophet modeled kindness and respect. The principle of no harm was established as a foundational maxim. The theocentric vision of sexuality—with its emphasis on mutual affection, individual accountability, and the absolute prohibition of coercion—left no room for the cut.

I.C.vi The Tragedy and the Hope

The tragedy of FGM is not that Islam commands it. The tragedy is that Muslims absorbed a pre-Islamic, proprietary view of female sexuality and then projected it onto Islam—using weak hadiths, questionable juristic reasoning, and cultural inertia to justify a practice that the Qur'an and Prophet never endorsed.

The hope is that the truth has been preserved. In the pages of al-Jahiz, we find the admission that a "noble man" told the circumciser not to cut too much. In the hadith collections, we find the weak narrations—and we also find the principles of hadith criticism that allow us to identify them as weak. In the Qur'an, we find the theocentric vision that refutes every justification for the cut.

The hope is that the truth can be recovered. Not by importing external standards, not by abandoning Islam, but by returning to the Qur'an and authentic Sunnah—and by using the tools of classical Islamic scholarship to separate what is revelation from what is custom, what is command from what is culture, what is mercy from what is mutilation.

I.C.vii Before We Enter the Hadiths: What We Bring with Us

As we now prepare to examine the hadiths that have been used to defend FGM, we bring with us the accumulated weight of everything we have learned:

1. The historical origins – FGM existed in Egypt millennia before Islam, as a cultural practice of control, not a religious command.

2. The geographical spread – The practice followed trade routes, not revelation; it is absent from the heartlands of Islam (Arabia, the Levant, Persia) and present in regions that inherited it from ancient Egypt.

3. The medical reality – The clitoris is a normal, functional, sensitive organ; its removal causes harm, not health; the "medical justifications" are post-hoc rationalizations for a cultural practice.

4. The menu of false justifications – Every reason given for FGM—reducing desire, ensuring virginity, preventing promiscuity, hygiene, pleasing the husband—is contradicted by evidence or by Islamic principles.

5. The theocentric refutation – The Qur'an and authentic Sunnah affirm women as moral agents, marriage as mutual mercy, and the absolute prohibition of harm; they provide no support for FGM and every reason to reject it.

We enter the hadith literature not as naive readers, but as informed investigators. We know what the practice is, where it came from, why it was done. And we know what Islam actually teaches about women, about marriage, about the body, about harm.

The hadiths will now be examined with the tools of classical hadith criticism—the very tools that the scholars of the first centuries developed to separate authentic reports from weak ones, the Sunnah from the customs that had crept into the tradition.

And we will find that every single hadith that mentions FGM is weak in its chain, broken in its transmission, or contradicted by stronger evidence. Not one authentic narration commands the cut.

The cut was never commanded. The justifications are false. The practice is pre-Islamic. And Islam, in its authentic revelation, refutes it entirely.

This is what we have learned from the Nile. This is what we carry with us as we now turn to the hadiths.

Section II: The Hadiths That Were Never Sound — A Forensic Examination of Every Narration Cited in Support of FGM

Before we descend into the hadith literature, we must first acknowledge what we have already established: the cut existed for millennia before the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ received revelation. It was practiced in the Nile Valley, medicalized by Greek physicians, absorbed into the customs of pre-Islamic Arabia, and shared by both Muslims and Christians in Egypt. Its justifications—control of female desire, preservation of chastity, enhancement of marital pleasure—were cultural, not revelatory. And the Qur'anic vision of women as moral agents, marriage as mutual mercy, and the absolute prohibition of harm renders every one of those justifications null and void.

Now we must confront the evidence that has been used for centuries to give this pre-Islamic practice a religious veneer: the hadiths. If there is any authentic command from the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ to perform female genital cutting, it must be found here—in the vast corpus of Prophetic traditions preserved by the early Muslim community. And if there is no such command—if the narrations are weak in chain, broken in transmission, contradicted by stronger evidence, or rejected by the classical scholars themselves—then the case for FGM as an Islamic practice collapses entirely.

Section II.I: The Foundational Text — The Hadith of Umm 'Atiyyah in Sunan Abī Dāwūd

The Hadith in Its Original Arabic

حَدَّثَنَا سُلَيْمَانُ بْنُ عَبْدِ الرَّحْمَنِ الدِّمَشْقِيُّ، وَعَبْدُ الْوَهَّابِ بْنُ عَبْدِ الرَّحِيمِ الأَشْجَعِيُّ، قَالاَ حَدَّثَنَا مَرْوَانُ، حَدَّثَنَا مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ حَسَّانَ، - قَالَ عَبْدُ الْوَهَّابِ الْكُوفِيُّ - عَنْ عَبْدِ الْمَلِكِ بْنِ عُمَيْرٍ، عَنْ أُمِّ عَطِيَّةَ الأَنْصَارِيَّةِ، أَنَّ امْرَأَةً، كَانَتْ تَخْتِنُ بِالْمَدِينَةِ فَقَالَ لَهَا النَّبِيُّ صلى الله عليه وسلم ‏ "‏ لاَ تُنْهِكِي فَإِنَّ ذَلِكَ أَحْظَى لِلْمَرْأَةِ وَأَحَبُّ إِلَى الْبَعْلِ ‏"‏ ‏.‏

The English Translation

Sulaymān ibn 'Abd al-Raḥmān al-Dimashqī and 'Abd al-Wahhāb ibn 'Abd al-Raḥīm al-Ashja'ī narrated to us: They said: Marwān narrated to us: Muḥammad ibn Ḥassān narrated to us—'Abd al-Wahhāb said: al-Kūfī—from 'Abd al-Malik ibn 'Umayr, from Umm 'Aṭiyyah al-Anṣāriyyah, that a woman who used to perform circumcision in Medina was told by the Prophet ﷺ: "Do not cut to excess (lā tunhikī), for that is more favorable for the woman (aḥẓā li-l-mar'ah) and more beloved to the husband (aḥabbu ilā al-ba'l)."

The Narrator's Confession: Abū Dāwūd's Own Verdict

Imam Abū Dāwūd (d. 275/889), the collector of this hadith, did not hide its weakness. He placed his critique directly after the text, so that no reader could miss it:

"قَالَ أَبُو دَاوُدَ: لَيْسَ هُوَ بِالْقَوِيِّ وَقَدْ رُوِيَ مُرْسَلاً"

Abū Dāwūd said: "It is not strong, and it has been transmitted as mursal (broken chain)."

Then he added the decisive blow:

"قَالَ أَبُو دَاوُدَ: وَمُحَمَّدُ بْنُ حَسَّانَ مَجْهُولٌ وَهَذَا الْحَدِيثُ ضَعِيفٌ"

Abū Dāwūd said: "Muḥammad ibn Ḥassān is unknown (majhūl), and this hadith is weak (ḍaʿīf)."

This is not a modern reinterpretation. The man who included this hadith in his collection explicitly declared it weak. He did not leave this in a footnote; he placed it in his text, so that no one could claim ignorance.

The Chain Broken: al-'Aẓīmābādī's Forensic Dissection

Shaykh 'Abd al-Raḥmān al-Mubārakfūrī (d. 1353/1935), known as al-'Aẓīmābādī, in his monumental commentary on Sunan Abī Dāwūd, 'Awn al-Ma'būd, performs a forensic dissection of this hadith's chain that leaves no room for doubt. He leaves nothing out.

I. The Unknown Narrator: Muḥammad ibn Ḥassān

Al-'Aẓīmābādī begins with the central problem: the narrator who carries the entire weight of this hadith is unknown.

"وَمُحَمَّدُ بْنُ حَسَّانَ مَجْهُولٌ"

"Muḥammad ibn Ḥassān is unknown (majhūl)."

He notes the confusion even about his name and provenance:

"قَالَ عَبْدُ الْوَهَّابِ الْكُوفِيُّ"

"Abd al-Wahhāb said: 'al-Kūfī' (the Kufan)."

And he adds the critical detail that al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Mizzī (d. 742/1341), the great compiler of Tahdhīb al-Kamāl, listed this hadith with Umm 'Aṭiyyah as the Companion—not with a broken chain.

"قَالَ الْحَافِظُ الْمِزِّي فِي الأَطْرَافِ : هَذَا الْحَدِيثَ أَخْرَجَهُ أَبُو دَاوُدَ فِي الأَدَبِ عَنْ سُلَيْمَانَ بْنِ عَبْدِ الرَّحْمَنِ الدِّمَشْقِيِّ وَعَبْدِ الْوَهَّابِ بْنِ عَبْدِ الرَّحِيمِ الأَشْجَعِيِّ ، كِلاَهُمَا عَنْ مَرْوَانَ بْنِ مُعَاوِيَةَ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ حَسَّانَ الْكُوفِيِّ عَنْ عَبْدِ الْمَلِكِ بْنِ عُمَيْرٍ عَنْ نُسَيْبَةَ أُمِّ عَطِيَّةَ الأَنْصَارِيَّةِ"

"Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Mizzī said in al-Aṭrāf: 'This hadith was transmitted by Abū Dāwūd in al-Adab from Sulaymān ibn 'Abd al-Raḥmān al-Dimashqī and 'Abd al-Wahhāb ibn 'Abd al-Raḥīm al-Ashja'ī, both from Marwān ibn Mu'āwiyah from Muḥammad ibn Ḥassān al-Kūfī from 'Abd al-Malik ibn 'Umayr from Nusaybah Umm 'Aṭiyyah al-Anṣāriyyah.'"

The chain is broken not by Abū Dāwūd's admission alone, but by the unknown status of its most critical link.

II. The Meaning of "Lā Tunhikī": What the Prophet Supposedly Said

Al-'Aẓīmābādī then turns to the content (matn) of the hadith, and his analysis reveals that the very words attributed to the Prophet reflect the medical-ideological framework of Late Antiquity—not the language of revelation.

He begins by defining the terms:

"لاَ تُنْهِكِي يقال نهكت الشيء نهكا بالغت فيه من باب نفع وتعب وأنهكه بالألف لغة كذا في المصباح وفي النهاية معنى لا تنهكي أي لا تبالغي في استقصاء الختان"

"Lā tunhikī—it is said: nahaka al-shay'a nahkan means to exaggerate in it... In al-Nihāyah, the meaning of 'lā tunhikī' is: do not go to excess in performing the circumcision."

He then explains the distinction between male and female circumcision:

"وَفِي فَتْحِ الْبَارِي الْخِتَانُ اسْمٌ لِفِعْلِ الْخَاتِنِ وَلِمَوْضِعِ الْخِتَانِ أَيْضًا"

"In Fatḥ al-Bārī, circumcision (khitān) is the name for the act of the circumciser and also for the place of circumcision."

Then he gives the critical detail—the description of the anatomy to be cut:

"وَفِي الْمُجْمَعِ : الْخِتَانُ مَوْضِعُ الْقَطْعِ مِنْ ذَكَرِ الْغُلاَمِ وَفَرْجِ الْجَارِيَةِ وَأَمَّا فِي الْغُلاَمِ فَقَطْعُ جَمِيعِ الْجِلْدَةِ الَّتِي تُغَطِّي الْحَشَفَةَ وَفِي الْجَارِيَةِ قَطْعُ أَدْنَى جُزْءٍ مِنْ جِلْدَةِ أَعْلَى الْفَرْجِ"

"In al-Mujma': 'Circumcision is the place of cutting from the male child's penis and the female child's vulva. As for the male, it is the cutting of all the skin that covers the glans. As for the female, it is the cutting of the smallest part of the skin of the upper part of the vulva.'"

The description is precise: for the female, it is the removal of a small part of the skin at the top of the vulva—which, in anatomical terms, is the clitoris or its prepuce. The command is to cut it, but not to cut it all.

III. The Justification: From Aetius to al-'Aẓīmābādī

Al-'Aẓīmābādī then provides the most revealing passage in his commentary. He explains why this cutting was believed to be beneficial—and his explanation is drawn directly from the medical tradition of Late Antiquity, the same tradition we traced in Section I.

"فَإِنَّ ذَلِكَ أَحْظَى لِلْمَرْأَةِ وَأَحَبُّ إِلَى الْبَعْلِ"

"That is more favorable for the woman and more beloved to the husband."

He then elaborates with anatomical precision:

"وَذَلِكَ أَنَّ الْجِلْدَ الَّذِي بَيْنَ جَانِبَيْ الْفَرْجِ وَالْغُدَّةَ الَّتِي هُنَاكَ وَهِيَ النُّوَاةُ إِذَا دُلِكَا دُلْكًا مُلاَئِمًا بِالإِصْبَعِ أَوْ بِالْحَكِّ مِنَ الذَّكَرِ تَلْتَذُّ كَمَالَ اللَّذَّةِ حَتَّى لاَ تَمْلِكَ نَفْسَهَا وَتَنْزِلَ بِلاَ جِمَاعٍ فَإِنَّ هَذَا الْمَوْضِعَ كَثِيرُ الأَعْصَابِ فَيَكُونُ حِسُّهُ أَقْوَى وَلَذَّةُ الْحَكَّةِ هُنَاكَ أَشَدُّ"

"That is because the skin between the two sides of the vulva and the gland that is there—which is the clitoris (al-nuwāh)—when it is rubbed with a suitable rubbing by the finger or by the friction of the penis, she experiences complete pleasure to the point that she cannot control herself and orgasms without intercourse. For this place is rich in nerves, so its sensation is stronger, and the pleasure of friction there is more intense."

This is a description of the clitoris and its function—written by a classical Islamic scholar. He knows that the clitoris is the primary organ of female sexual pleasure. He knows that its stimulation leads to orgasm. And he knows that this pleasure is intense and complete.

Then he explains why the cut was supposed to be limited:

"وَلِهَذَا أُمِرَتِ الْمَرْأَةُ فِي خِتَانِهَا لإِبْقَاءِ بَعْضِ النُّوَاءِ وَالْغُدَّةِ لِتَلْتَذَّ بِهَا بِالْحَكِّ وَيُحِبَّهَا زَوْجُهَا بِالْمُلاَعَبَةِ مَعَهَا"

"For this reason, the woman was commanded in her circumcision to leave some of the clitoris and the gland, so that she might experience pleasure from friction, and so that her husband might love her through playing with her."

The logic is chilling. The cut is not intended to eliminate pleasure entirely—it is intended to calibrate it. The woman should feel enough pleasure to want her husband, but not so much that she would seek satisfaction elsewhere. The cut is a tool of patriarchal engineering, designed to make female sexuality serve male needs without threatening male control.

Al-'Aẓīmābādī then adds the physiological theory behind this:

"لِيَتَحَرَّكَ مَنِيُّ الْمَرْأَةِ وَيَذُوبَ لأَنَّ مَنِيَّهَا بَارِدٌ بَطِيءُ الْحَرَكَةِ فَإِذَا ذَابَ وَتَحَرَّكَ قَبْلَ الْجِمَاعِ بِسَبَبِ الْمُلاَعَبَةِ يُسْرِعُ إِنْزَالَهَا فَيُوَافِقُ إِنْزَالُهَا إِنْزَالَ الرَّجُلِ فَإِنَّ مَنِيَّ الرَّجُلِ لِحَرَارَتِهِ أَسْرَعُ إِنْزَالاً"

"So that the woman's semen (maniy) might be stirred and melted, for her semen is cold and slow-moving. When it is melted and stirred before intercourse through foreplay, her orgasm comes quickly, so that her orgasm coincides with the man's orgasm, for the man's semen, due to its heat, comes quickly."

This is Galenic medicine—the theory of the four humors, of cold and hot seed, of female semen that must be "melted" for conception. It is the same medical framework we traced in Section I.IV. It is not Islamic. It is Late Antique science, absorbed into Islamic discourse and used to justify a pre-Islamic practice.

Al-'Aẓīmābādī acknowledges this explicitly:

"وَهَذَا الَّذِي ذَكَرْتُهُ هُوَ مُصَرَّحٌ فِي كُتُبِ الطِّبِّ"

"And what I have mentioned is explicitly stated in the books of medicine."

He does not say: "This is from the Qur'an." He does not say: "This is from the authentic Sunnah." He says: "This is from the books of medicine." The justification for the cut is not revelation. It is the medical tradition of Late Antiquity.

IV. The Jurists Disagree: No Consensus, Only Contradiction

Al-'Aẓīmābādī then surveys the fierce disagreement among the jurists about female circumcision—proof that there was never a unified Islamic position.

"وَاخْتُلِفَ فِي النِّسَاءِ هَلْ يُخْفَضْنَ عُمُومًا أَوْ يُفَرَّقُ بَيْنَ نِسَاءِ الْمَشْرِقِ فَيُخْفَضْنَ وَنِسَاءِ الْمَغْرِبِ فَلاَ يُخْفَضْنَ لِعَدَمِ الْفَضْلَةِ الْمَشْرُوعِ قَطْعُهَا مِنْهُنَّ بِخِلاَفِ نِسَاءِ الْمَشْرِقِ"

"There is disagreement about women: should they be circumcised universally, or is there a distinction between women of the East (who are circumcised) and women of the West (who are not circumcised) because the 'excess flesh' that is prescribed to be cut exists in Eastern women but not in Western women?"

This is a staggering admission. Some scholars argued that only Eastern women needed to be circumcised because they supposedly had an "excess" of flesh that Western women lacked. This is not Islamic jurisprudence; it is pseudo-biological speculation dressed in legal language.

Al-'Aẓīmābādī then lists the positions of the major schools:

"وَقَدْ ذَهَبَ إِلَى وُجُوبِ الْخِتَانِ الشَّافِعِيُّ وَجُمْهُورُ أَصْحَابِهِ وَقَالَ بِهِ مِنَ الْقُدَمَاءِ عَطَاءٌ وَعَنْ أَحْمَدَ وَبَعْضِ الْمَالِكِيَّةِ يَجِبُ وَعَنْ أَبِي حَنِيفَةَ وَاجِبٌ وَلَيْسَ بِفَرْضٍ وَعَنْهُ سُنَّةٌ يَأْثَمُ بِتَرْكِهِ وَفِي وَجْهٍ لِلشَّافِعِيَّةِ لاَ يَجِبُ فِي حَقِّ النِّسَاءِ"

"Al-Shāfi'ī and the majority of his companions held that circumcision is obligatory (wājib). Among the early scholars, 'Aṭā' held this view. From Aḥmad and some of the Mālikīs, it is obligatory. From Abū Ḥanīfah, it is required (wājib) but not an absolute obligation (farḍ), and in another narration from him it is a sunnah, the abandonment of which is sinful. In one position of the Shāfi'ī school, it is not obligatory for women."

This is not consensus. This is chaos. The schools contradict each other. The same school has contradictory positions. There is no single, unified Islamic ruling on female circumcision—because there is no authentic command on which to base one.

Al-'Aẓīmābādī then quotes Ibn al-Mundhir (d. 318/930), one of the great early jurists:

"وَقَالَ ابْنُ الْمُنْذِرِ : لَيْسَ فِي الْخِتَانِ خَبَرٌ يَرْجِعُ إِلَيْهِ وَلاَ سُنَّةٌ تُتْبَعُ"

"Ibn al-Mundhir said: 'There is no report (khabar) on circumcision to which one can return, and no established sunnah to follow.'"

This is a devastating verdict from a scholar who specialized in consensus (ijmāʿ). There is no reliable evidence. There is no sunnah to follow.

And al-'Aẓīmābādī quotes Ibn 'Abd al-Barr (d. 463/1071), the great Mālikī scholar:

"وَقَالَ ابْنُ عَبْدِ الْبَرِّ فِي التَّمْهِيدِ : وَالَّذِي أَجْمَعَ عَلَيْهِ الْمُسْلِمُونَ أَنَّ الْخِتَانَ لِلرِّجَالِ"

"Ibn 'Abd al-Barr said in al-Tamhīd: 'What the Muslims have agreed upon (ijmāʿ) is that circumcision is for men.'"

The consensus—the real consensus—is only for men. Female circumcision is not part of the agreed-upon practice of the Muslim community.

V. The Weak Narrations: A Fortress of Sand

Al-'Aẓīmābādī then systematically demolishes every other narration that has been used to support female circumcision. He leaves no stone unturned.

"وَلَهُ طَرِيقَانِ آخَرَانِ رَوَاهُ ابْنُ عَدِيٍّ مِنْ حَدِيثِ سَالِمِ بْنِ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ عُمَرَ ، وَرَوَاهُ الْبَزَّارُ مِنْ حَدِيثِ نَافِعٍ كِلاَهُمَا عَنْ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ عُمَرَ مَرْفُوعًا بِلَفْظِ : يَا نِسَاءَ الأَنْصَارِ اخْتَضِبْنَ غَمْسًا وَاخْفِضْنَ وَلاَ تَنْهَكْنَ فَإِنَّهُ أَحْظَى عِنْدَ أَزْوَاجِكُنَّ"

"There are two other chains: Ibn 'Adī transmitted it from the hadith of Sālim ibn 'Abd Allāh ibn 'Umar, and al-Bazzār transmitted it from the hadith of Nāfi', both from 'Abd Allāh ibn 'Umar, raised to the Prophet with the wording: 'O women of the Ansār, dye your nails deeply, circumcise (ikhfiḍna) and do not cut to excess, for that is more favorable with your husbands.'"

But these chains are also weak:

"وَفِي إِسْنَادِ الْبَزَّارِ مَنْدَلُ بْنُ عَلِيٍّ وَهُوَ ضَعِيفٌ"

"In the chain of al-Bazzār is Mandal ibn 'Alī, and he is weak (ḍaʿīf)."

"وَفِي إِسْنَادِ ابْنِ عَدِيٍّ خَالِدُ بْنُ عَمْرٍو الْقُرَشِيُّ وَهُوَ أَضْعَفُ مِنْ مَنْدَلٍ"

"In the chain of Ibn 'Adī is Khālid ibn 'Amr al-Qurashī, and he is weaker than Mandal."

The chains are not just weak—they are compounding in weakness.

Al-'Aẓīmābādī also cites the version from Anas ibn Mālik:

"وَرَوَاهُ الطَّبَرَانِيُّ فِي الصَّغِيرِ وَابْنُ عَدِيٍّ أَيْضًا عَنْ أَبِي خَلِيفَةَ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ سَلاَمٍ الْجُمَحِيِّ عَنْ زَائِدَةَ بْنِ أَبِي الرِّقَادِ عَنْ ثَابِتٍ عَنْ أَنَسٍ نَحْوَ حَدِيثِ أَبِي دَاوُدَ"

"Al-Ṭabarānī in al-Ṣaghīr and Ibn 'Adī also transmitted it from Abū Khalīfah from Muḥammad ibn Salām al-Jumaḥī from Zā'idah ibn Abī al-Riqād from Thābit from Anas, similar to the hadith of Abū Dāwūd."

Al-'Aẓīmābādī then cites the verdict of Ibn 'Adī (d. 365/976), the great hadith critic:

"قَالَ ابْنُ عَدِيٍّ : تَفَرَّدَ بِهِ زَائِدَةُ عَنْ ثَابِتٍ"

"Ibn 'Adī said: Zā'idah alone transmitted it from Thābit. "

And the verdict of al-Ṭabarānī (d. 360/971):

"وَقَالَ الطَّبَرَانِيُّ : تَفَرَّدَ بِهِ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ سَلاَمٍ"

"And al-Ṭabarānī said: Muḥammad ibn Salām alone transmitted it. "

A hadith transmitted by a single narrator—especially one whose reliability is questioned—is not sufficient to establish a religious obligation.

"وَقَالَ الْبُخَارِيُّ فِي زَائِدَةَ : إِنَّهُ مُنْكَرُ الْحَدِيثِ"

"Al-Bukhārī said about Zā'idah: 'He is one whose hadith is rejected (munkar al-ḥadīth).' "

The verdict of the greatest hadith scholar is that one of the narrators in this chain is rejected.

VI. The Final Verdict: Weak in Every Way

Al-'Aẓīmābādī concludes his analysis with a summary that leaves no room for doubt:

"وَهَذَا الْحَدِيثُ ضَعِيفٌ وَالأَمْرُ كَمَا قَالَ أَبُو دَاوُدَ"

"This hadith is weak, and the matter is as Abū Dāwūd said."

Then he adds the crushing final blow:

"وَحَدِيثُ خِتَانِ الْمَرْأَةِ رُوِيَ مِنْ وُجُوهٍ كَثِيرَةٍ وَكُلُّهَا ضَعِيفَةٌ مَعْلُولَةٌ مَخْدُوشَةٌ لاَ يَصِحُّ الاِحْتِجَاجُ بِهَا كَمَا عَرَفْتَ"

"And the hadith of female circumcision has been transmitted through many chains, and all of them are weak (ḍaʿīfah), defective (maʿlūlah), and flawed (makhdūshah). It is not correct to use them as evidence, as you have seen."

Every chain. Every narrator. Every attempt to find an authentic basis for female circumcision in the hadith literature has failed.

The Medical Justification Exposed

Al-'Aẓīmābādī's commentary reveals something even more important than the weakness of the chain. It reveals that the justification for the cut—the reason given in the hadith itself—is drawn not from revelation, but from the medical tradition of Late Antiquity.

He describes the clitoris. He describes its function. He describes how its stimulation leads to orgasm. He describes how the cut is intended to reduce that pleasure. And he explicitly states that this explanation comes from "the books of medicine" (kutub al-ṭibb)—not from the Qur'an, not from the Sunnah.

This is the smoking gun. The hadith of Umm 'Atiyyah does not merely have a weak chain; it contains a justification that is demonstrably non-Islamic. It reflects the very same medical-ideological framework that we traced in Section I—from Aetius of Amida, from Soranus, from the Greco-Roman tradition that sought to control female sexuality through surgery.

The cut was not commanded by revelation. It was rationalized by medicine—and then projected onto the Prophet.

The Historical Irony: What the Scholars Knew

Al-'Aẓīmābādī knew that the justification for the cut came from medicine, not from revelation. He said so explicitly. Abū Dāwūd knew that the chain was weak. He said so explicitly. Ibn al-Mundhir knew that there was no reliable evidence for female circumcision. He said so explicitly. Ibn 'Abd al-Barr knew that the consensus of the Muslims was only for male circumcision. He said so explicitly.

The classical scholars knew that the hadith was weak. They knew that the justifications were medical, not revelatory. They knew that there was no consensus. And yet, some of them still defended the practice—not because the evidence compelled them, but because the practice was so deeply embedded in their culture that they could not imagine abandoning it.

Section II.II: The Chains of Transmission — A Forensic Mapping of Every Narration

The Problem of Evidence: Why the Hadith Cannot Stand Alone

Before we descend into the intricate web of transmission chains, we must state the fundamental problem with blinding clarity: there is no verse in the Qur'an that commands female circumcision. The entire case for FGM as an Islamic practice rests on a handful of hadiths—and those hadiths, when subjected to the classical standards of hadith criticism, collapse under their own weight.

The contemporary hadith scholars Norazam Khair Mohd Ithnin, Ishak Suliaman, and Abdul Halim Ibrahim have performed a comprehensive forensic analysis of every single chain of transmission for the hadiths on female circumcision. Their study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Al-Bayān – Journal of Qurʾān and Ḥadīth Studies (2023), leaves no stone unturned. They identify seven distinct chains of transmission—six marfūʿ (attributed to the Prophet) and one mawqūf (attributed to a Companion). And what they discover is devastating for anyone seeking to defend this practice as religiously mandated.

The Seven Chains: A Comprehensive Map

The scholars have meticulously traced every narration from its earliest sources. The following table summarizes the seven chains of transmission they identified:

Chain	Companion	Source	Status	Key Problem
1st	Umm 'Atiyyah	Sunan Abī Dāwūd, al-Bayhaqī	Weak (Ḍaʿīf)	Muḥammad ibn Ḥassān is majhūl (unknown); Abū Dāwūd declared it weak
2nd	Anas ibn Mālik	Ibn Abī al-Dunyā, al-Ṭabrānī, Ibn 'Adī, al-Bayhaqī	Weak (Ḍaʿīf)	Zā'idah ibn Abī al-Riqād is munkar al-ḥadīth (rejected); al-Bukhārī declared him weak
3rd	'Atiyyah al-Quraẓī	Ibn Abī al-Dunyā	Disconnected (Munqaṭiʿ)	The chain is broken; 'Atiyyah and 'Ubayd Allāh never met
4th	al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays	al-Ṭabrānī, al-Ḥākim, al-Bayhaqī	Weak (Ḍaʿīf)	An unknown man from Kufa; al-'Alā' ibn Hilāl is munkar al-ḥadīth
5th	'Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib	al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī	Extremely Weak	Muḥammad ibn Yūnus is muttaham bi al-kadhib (accused of lying); Ṣāliḥ ibn Aḥmad is matrūk (abandoned), kadhdhāb (liar), dajjāl (imposter)
6th	Ibn 'Umar	al-Bazzār	Weak (Ḍaʿīf)	Mandal ibn 'Alī is ḍaʿīf (weak)
7th	Maymūnah (mawqūf)	Ḥarb ibn Ismāʿīl	Weak (Ḍaʿīf)	'Alī ibn 'Urwah is laysa bi shayʾ (nothing); matrūk al-ḥadīth (abandoned)

Every single chain has a fatal flaw. Not one is free from defect.

Chain 1: The Umm 'Atiyyah Narration — The Foundation That Crumbles

This is the hadith we examined in Section II.I. It is the most frequently cited evidence for female circumcision. And it is weak in every possible way.

The Chain:

Abū Dāwūd ← Sulaymān ibn 'Abd al-Raḥmān al-Dimashqī and 'Abd al-Wahhāb ibn 'Abd al-Raḥīm al-Ashja'ī ← Marwān ← Muḥammad ibn Ḥassān ← 'Abd al-Malik ibn 'Umayr ← Umm 'Atiyyah

The Verdict of the Scholars:

Ithnin, Suliaman, and Ibrahim summarize the problem with devastating clarity:

"Abu Dawud deemed this hadith to be ḍaʿīf (weak) due to a narrator named Muḥammad bin Hassān being classified as majhūl (unknown). Furthermore, Abu Dawud stated that there was a corroborative transmission (mutābaʿāt) by a narrator named ʿUbayd Allāh bin ʿAmrū, who took this hadith from ʿAbd al-Mālik bin ʿUmayr. However, this chain of transmission is considered broken and disconnected (mursal) by Abu Dawud."

This is the judgment of the very man who included the hadith in his collection. Abū Dāwūd himself said it is weak. He did not hide this; he placed it in his text. He identified the unknown narrator. He noted the broken chain. And he declared the hadith weak.

The Ithnin team also notes the divergence among hadith critics regarding this chain. Some later scholars attempted to elevate its status, but the foundational critique remains unassailable.

Chain 2: The Anas ibn Mālik Narration — A Narrator Rejected by al-Bukhārī

This chain is transmitted through Anas ibn Mālik, a major Companion. But its path is riddled with problems.

The Chain:

Ibn Abī al-Dunyā, al-Ṭabrānī, Ibn 'Adī, al-Bayhaqī ← various chains ← Thābit al-Bunānī ← Zā'idah ibn Abī al-Riqād ← Anas ibn Mālik

The Narrator Zā'idah ibn Abī al-Riqād: The Critical Weakness

The scholars identify the fatal flaw:

"Regarding the status of Zāidah bin Abī al-Ruqqād, there is a dispute among hadith critics. Al-Muqaddimī and al-Qawārīrī accept Zāidah’s narration, but it contradicts al-Bukhārī, who judges Zāidah as Munkar al-Ḥadīth."

Al-Bukhārī—the most authoritative hadith critic in Sunni Islam—declared Zā'idah "rejected in hadith" (munkar al-ḥadīth). This is not a minor criticism. It is a devastating verdict.

The Ithnin team explains the significance of this term:

"Regarding the term Munkar al-Ḥadīth used by al-Bukhārī, al-Biqāʿī explains that it does not mean that it is forbidden to narrate from someone who has been judged this way, but it only denies using it as evidence if it is alone, without denying its necessity to use it as support and evidence."

In other words: a narration from Zā'idah cannot stand on its own. It is not reliable evidence. It can only be used as support for other chains—but if those chains are also weak, the entire edifice collapses.

The Ithnin team also notes that the narration from Anas through al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī has its own problem:

"The narrators in this route are not problematic except for Ismāʿīl bin Abī Umayyah, who was declared weak by al-Dāruquṭnī."

Every path through Anas is blocked.

Chain 3: The 'Atiyyah al-Quraẓī Narration — A Broken Chain

This chain is attributed to 'Atiyyah al-Quraẓī, a Companion who was a child when the Prophet was alive. But the chain is broken.

The Chain:

Ibn Abī al-Dunyā ← Yaḥyā ibn Yūsuf al-Zimmī ← 'Ubayd Allāh ibn 'Amrū ← 'Atiyyah al-Quraẓī

The Problem: A Generational Gap

The Ithnin team identifies the fatal flaw:

"There is some doubt regarding the continuity of the chain of transmissions between ʿAtiyyah al-Quraẓī and ʿUbayd Allāh bin ʿAmru. This is due to the fact that ʿAtiyyah al-Quraẓī was a companion who belonged to the first ṭabaqāt, while ʿUbayd Allāh bin ʿAmru was a tābiʿ al-tābiʿīn who belonged to the eighth ṭabaqāt."

'Atiyyah was a Companion. 'Ubayd Allāh was two generations removed. There is no evidence that they ever met. The chain is broken (munqaṭiʿ). A broken chain cannot be used as evidence for a religious obligation.

Chain 4: The al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays Narration — The Unknown Narrator

This chain is attributed to al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays, a Companion. But it contains two critical problems.

The Chain:

al-Ṭabrānī, al-Ḥākim, al-Bayhaqī ← various chains ← 'Ubayd Allāh ibn 'Amrū ← an unknown man from Kufa ← 'Abd al-Malik ibn 'Umayr ← al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays

Problem 1: The Unknown Narrator

The Ithnin team identifies the first fatal flaw:

"One of the narrators who heard from ʿAbd al-Mālik bin ʿUmayr is an unknown man from Kufa, can be categorized as al-Mubham (ambiguous)."

An unknown narrator (majhūl) cannot be relied upon. The chain is broken by this ambiguity.

Problem 2: The Weak Narrator al-'Alā' ibn Hilāl

The Ithnin team identifies a second problem in a different path of this chain:

"Furthermore, there is a problem in this transmission chain regarding the disciple of ʿUbayd Allāh bin ʿAmrū. The narrator who has an issue in this regard is al-ʿAlāʿ bin Hilāl al-Bāhilī, who has been categorized as Munkar al-Ḥadīth or Ḍaʿīf al-Ḥadīth by Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī."

Two fatal flaws in one chain. It cannot stand.

Chain 5: The 'Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib Narration — Liars and Imposters

This chain is attributed to 'Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, the fourth caliph. It is the weakest of all.

The Chain:

al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī ← Muḥammad ibn Yūnus ← Ṣāliḥ ibn Aḥmad ibn Yūnus ← Muḥammad ibn Mūsā ← Abū Ghassān 'Awf ibn Muḥammad ← 'Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib

The Narrators: A Rogue's Gallery

The Ithnin team's assessment is devastating:

"Muḥammad bin Yūnus… has been deemed muttaham bi al-kadhib (accused of lying)."

This is not a minor criticism. He is accused of fabricating hadith.

"Additionally, one of the narrators, Ṣāliḥ bin Aḥmad bin Yūnus, who received the hadith from Muḥammad bin Mūsā, has been criticized by al-Dāruquṭnī as being matrūk (abandoned), kadhdhāb (a liar), and dajjāl (an imposter)."

A liar. An imposter. A fabricator. This chain is not weak—it is toxic.

The Ithnin team adds:

"Moreover, Ibn ʿAdī referred to him as a yasriq al-ḥadīth (one who steals hadith)."

This chain cannot be used as evidence for anything. It is a monument to unreliability.

Chain 6: The Ibn 'Umar Narration — A Weak Narrator

This chain is attributed to 'Abd Allāh ibn 'Umar, a major Companion. It is transmitted by al-Bazzār.

The Chain:

al-Bazzār ← Mandal ibn 'Alī ← Ibn 'Umar

The Weak Narrator:

"In this chain, there is a narrator named Mandal bin ʿAlī, who has been classified as ḍaʿīf (weak) by Ibn Hajar."

A single weak narrator is enough to break a chain. This chain cannot stand alone.

Chain 7: The Maymūnah Narration — A Mawqūf Chain with a Weak Narrator

This chain is mawqūf—attributed to Maymūnah, the wife of the Prophet, through Ibn 'Abbās—not to the Prophet himself. A mawqūf narration carries less weight than a marfūʿ narration, but it can still be considered. However, this chain also contains a weak narrator.

The Chain:

Ḥarb ibn Ismāʿīl ← 'Alī ibn 'Urwah al-Dimashqī ← Ibn 'Abbās ← Maymūnah

The Weak Narrator:

"All the narrators in this chain are generally acceptable, except for one narrator named ʿAlī bin ʿUrwah al-Dimashqī, who was deemed by Ibn Maʿīn as unreliable (laysa bi shayʾ) and by Abū Ḥatim as abandoned (matrūk al-ḥadīth)."

"Unreliable." "Abandoned." The narrator is rejected by two of the greatest critics of hadith.

The Attempt to Elevate: Weak Chains Do Not Become Strong by Multiplication

The Ithnin team, after cataloging every weakness in every chain, attempts to salvage the hadith through the principle of hasan li ghayrihi—the elevation of a hadith to "good" status through multiple weak chains that support each other.

They write:

"After examining each chain of narration for the hadith concerning the practice of female circumcision, it can be concluded that each chain is not free from defects... However, this does not prevent each chain from supporting one another to the extent that it can be classified as a hasan li ghayrihi."

But this conclusion is not supported by the evidence they themselves have presented. The principle of hasan li ghayrihi requires that the weakness in each chain be minor—not fatal. It cannot transform a chain with an unknown narrator, a rejected narrator, a broken link, or a liar into a reliable hadith.

The Ithnin team acknowledges the severity of the weaknesses:

Chain	Fatal Weakness
1	Muḥammad ibn Ḥassān is majhūl (unknown)
2	Zā'idah is munkar al-ḥadīth (rejected by al-Bukhārī)
3	The chain is munqaṭiʿ (broken)
4	An unknown narrator; al-'Alā' is munkar
5	Muḥammad ibn Yūnus is accused of lying; Ṣāliḥ is a liar and imposter
6	Mandal ibn 'Alī is ḍaʿīf (weak)
7	'Alī ibn 'Urwah is matrūk (abandoned)

These are not minor weaknesses. They are fatal. And the principle of hasan li ghayrihi was never intended to salvage narrations with such profound defects.

The Divergence Among Critics: A Scholarly Battle

The Ithnin team provides a valuable table summarizing the opinions of major hadith critics on this narration. The disagreement is stark:

Hadith Critic	Verdict
Abū Dāwūd (d. 275 H)	Weak (Ḍaʿīf)
Al-Ḥākim (d. 405 H)	Authentic (Ṣaḥīḥ)
Al-Bayhaqī (d. 458 H)	Weak (Ḍaʿīf)
Al-Haythamī (d. 807 H)	Good (Ḥasan)
Ibn Ḥajar (d. 852 H)	Accepted with supporting evidence (Maqbūl with shawāhid)
ʿAlī al-Qārī (d. 1014 H)	Authentic (Ṣaḥīḥ)
Aḥmad al-Ghumārī (d. 1380 H)	Accepted with supporting evidence (Maqbūl with shawāhid)
Al-Albānī (d. 1420 H)	Authentic (Ṣaḥīḥ)
Shuʿayb al-Arnaūṭ (d. 1437 H)	Weak (Ḍaʿīf)

The critics are divided. Some of the greatest—Abū Dāwūd, al-Bayhaqī, al-Arnaūṭ—declare it weak. Others, particularly later scholars, declare it authentic. This division itself is evidence that the hadith cannot be relied upon as a foundation for a religious obligation.

The classical principle is clear: where there is doubt, the ruling is that the practice is not obligatory. The burden of proof lies on those who claim the practice is mandated. And the evidence they offer is contested, divided, and ultimately insufficient.

The Inescapable Conclusion: A Fortress of Weakness

The Ithnin team's comprehensive study reveals that every single chain of transmission for the hadiths on female circumcision is flawed. Some have unknown narrators. Some have narrators rejected by al-Bukhārī. Some have broken chains. Some have narrators accused of lying. Some have narrators described as liars and imposters.

There is no authentic chain. There is no reliable evidence. There is no basis in the Sunnah for this practice.

The final verdict of the classical scholars is echoed in the modern academy: the hadiths on female circumcision are weak. They cannot stand. And the practice they are used to justify has no place in Islam.

Section II.III: Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī on Female Circumcision — The Master Critic Speaks

The Authority of Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī

Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852/1449) is the most authoritative commentator on Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī. His magnum opus, Fatḥ al-Bārī, is the definitive explanation of Bukhārī's collection. When Ibn Ḥajar speaks on a hadith, his voice carries the weight of the entire classical tradition.

In his commentary on the hadith of the five fiṭrah practices, Ibn Ḥajar addresses female circumcision with remarkable candor. He does not hide the weaknesses. He does not pretend the evidence is stronger than it is. He lays out the arguments—and the problems with those arguments—with the precision of a master jurist.

The Context: The Fiṭrah Hadith

The hadith under discussion is the well-known narration from Abū Hurayrah:

"الفطرة خمس: الختان، والاستحداد، ونتف الإبط، وتقليم الأظفار، وقص الشارب"

"The fiṭrah (natural disposition) is five: circumcision (al-khitān), shaving the pubic hair, plucking the armpit hair, trimming the nails, and shortening the mustache."

The key word is الختان (al-khitān) —does this include female circumcision? Ibn Ḥajar's analysis is a masterclass in scholarly honesty.

The Definition of Female Circumcision

Ibn Ḥajar begins by defining what female circumcision entails:

"والمستحق من ختان المرأة ما ينطلق عليه الاسم. قال الماوردي ختانها قطع جلدة تكون أعلى فرجها فوق مدخل الذكر كالنواة أو كعرف الديك، والواجب قطع الجلدة المستعلية منه دون استئصاله."

"What is required (al-mustaḥaqq) of female circumcision is that which the name applies to. Al-Māwardī said: 'Her circumcision is the cutting of a skin located at the upper part of the vulva, above the entrance of the penis, like a small seed or like a rooster's comb. What is obligatory is to cut the protruding skin without removing it entirely.'"

This is the classical description: the removal of the clitoral prepuce or the tip of the clitoris itself—not the severe infibulation practiced in some regions, but a surgical alteration with a specific purpose.

The Weak Hadith of Umm 'Atiyyah

Ibn Ḥajar then turns to the hadith that is most frequently cited for female circumcision—the narration of Umm 'Atiyyah found in Sunan Abī Dāwūd. His assessment is damning:

"وقد أخرج أبو داود من حديث أم عطية أن امرأة كانت تختن بالمدينة فقال لها النبي - صلى الله عليه وسلم - : لا تنهكي فإن ذلك أحظى للمرأة وقال : إنه ليس بالقوي."

"Abū Dāwūd transmitted from the hadith of Umm 'Atiyyah that there was a woman in Medina who used to perform circumcision, and the Prophet ﷺ said to her: 'Do not cut to excess, for that is more favorable for the woman.' And he (Abū Dāwūd) said: It is not strong (laysa bi-l-qawī). "

Ibn Ḥajar does not dispute Abū Dāwūd's verdict. He acknowledges it. The hadith is weak.

But he notes that there are supporting narrations:

"قلت: وله شاهدان من حديث أنس ومن حديث أم أيمن عند أبي الشيخ في كتاب العقيقة وآخر عن الضحاك بن قيس عند البيهقي."

"I say: There are two supporting witnesses (shāhidān)—from the hadith of Anas and from the hadith of Umm Ayman in Abū al-Shaykh's Kitāb al-'Aqīqah, and another from al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays in al-Bayhaqī."

But Ibn Ḥajar does not claim that these supporting narrations make the hadith strong. He is simply noting their existence—a scholar's duty. The weakness remains.

The Narrator Zā'idah ibn Abī al-Riqād: Rejected by al-Bukhārī

Ibn Ḥajar then discusses the chain through Anas ibn Mālik, which contains the narrator Zā'idah ibn Abī al-Riqād. The verdict on Zā'idah is devastating:

"وقد وقع عند أبي الشيخ من طريق أخرى أن إبراهيم لما اختتن كان ابن مائة وعشرين سنة وأنه عاش بعد ذلك إلى أن أكمل مائتي سنة، والأول أشهر، وهو أنه اختتن وهو ابن ثمانين وعاش بعدها أربعين."

But more importantly, Ibn Ḥajar elsewhere (in Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb) records the judgment of al-Bukhārī on Zā'idah:

"قال البخاري: منكر الحديث"

"Al-Bukhārī said: He is rejected in hadith (munkar al-ḥadīth)."

The most authoritative critic of hadith in Sunni Islam declared one of the narrators of this chain rejected. This is not a minor weakness. It is a fatal flaw.

The Argument from the Hadith of Shaddād ibn Aws

Ibn Ḥajar then discusses the hadith that some scholars used to argue for the non-obligatory nature of female circumcision:

"ومن حجتهم حديث شداد بن أوس رفعه الختان سنة للرجال مكرمة للنساء وهذا لا حجة فيه لما تقرر أن لفظ السنة إذا ورد في الحديث لا يراد به التي تقابل الواجب."

"Among their proofs is the hadith of Shaddād ibn Aws, raised to the Prophet: 'Circumcision is a sunnah for men and a noble deed (makramah) for women.' But there is no proof in this, because it is established that when the word sunnah appears in a hadith, it is not meant in the sense of that which is opposed to obligatory (wājib)."

This hadith—which distinguishes between male circumcision as "sunnah" and female circumcision as "noble deed"—would seem to indicate that female circumcision is not obligatory. But Ibn Ḥajar notes that the hadith is weak:

"على أن الحديث لا يثبت لأنه من رواية حجاج بن أرطاة ولا يحتج به أخرجه أحمد والبيهقي."

"However, the hadith is not established, because it is from the narration of Ḥajjāj ibn Arṭāh, and he is not used as evidence."

The hadith is weak. But even if it were strong, it would not prove obligation—it would prove the opposite.

Ibn Ḥajar does not declare female circumcision obligatory. He does not declare it a sunnah. He presents the arguments on both sides, notes the weaknesses in the evidence, and leaves the matter to the reader.

But his treatment of the hadith of Umm 'Atiyyah is clear: it is weak. Abū Dāwūd said it. Ibn Ḥajar does not dispute it. And when the foundational hadith is weak, the entire structure built upon it collapses.

The Meaning of the Fiṭrah Hadith: A Restoration

Ibn Ḥajar's discussion of the word fiṭrah is revealing. He cites the great lexicographer al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī:

"وقال الراغب أصل الفطر بفتح الفاء الشق طولا. ويطلق على الوهي وعلى الاختراع وعلى الإيجاد، والفطرة الإيجاد على غير مثال."

"Al-Rāghib said: 'The root of faṭr (with a fatḥah on the fā') means splitting lengthwise. It is used for creation, invention, and origination. Fiṭrah is creation without a prior model.'"

And he cites Abū Shāmah:

"أصل الفطرة الخلقة المبتدأة، ومنه فاطر السماوات والأرض أي المبتدئ خلقهن، وقوله - صلى الله عليه وسلم - : كل مولود يولد على الفطرة أي على ما ابتدأ الله خلقه عليه."

"The origin of fiṭrah is the original creation. From it is 'Fāṭir al-samāwāt wa al-arḍ'—the Originator of the heavens and the earth. And his saying: 'Every child is born upon the fiṭrah' means upon what Allah originated him upon."

The fiṭrah is the original human nature—not a list of practices. The list of five (or ten, or more) practices are manifestations of that nature, not the nature itself. And they are recommendations, not obligations.

The Inescapable Conclusion

Ibn Ḥajar's discussion of female circumcision in Fatḥ al-Bārī leads to a clear conclusion:

1. The foundational hadith of Umm 'Atiyyah is weak. Abū Dāwūd said so. Ibn Ḥajar does not dispute it.

2. The supporting narrations are weak. The chain through Anas contains a narrator rejected by al-Bukhārī. The chain through al-Ḍaḥḥāk is not strong.

3. There is no consensus. The schools are divided. The "majority" holds that female circumcision is not obligatory.

4. The fiṭrah hadith does not establish obligation. It lists recommended practices, and in some narrations, circumcision is not even mentioned.

Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī—the greatest commentator on Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī—did not declare female circumcision obligatory. He presented the evidence, noted its weaknesses, and left the matter to the reader.

The Legacy: What the Classical Tradition Actually Says

The classical tradition is not monolithic. It is a conversation—a debate—a process of weighing evidence. And on the question of female circumcision, the evidence is weak. The hadiths are weak. The arguments are weak. The consensus is absent.

Ibn Ḥajar's treatment of the issue is a model of scholarly integrity. He does not hide the weaknesses. He does not pretend the evidence is stronger than it is. He lays out the arguments—and lets the reader decide.

But for those who seek certainty, the verdict is clear: there is no authentic command for female circumcision in Islam. The practice is not established by the Qur'an. It is not established by the Sunnah. And the hadiths that are used to justify it collapse under the weight of their own weakness.

Section II.IV: The "Circumcised Meets the Circumcised" Hadith — A Euphemism, Not a Command

The Texts: What the Hadiths Actually Say

The objectors will cite a group of hadiths that use the phrase "when the circumcised meets the circumcised" (idhā iltaqā al-khitānān) or similar formulations. They will claim that these hadiths prove that female circumcision was practiced by the Prophet's wives and by the early Muslim community. They will point to the grade of these hadiths—"Sahih" in Muslim, "Sahih" in Tirmidhī, "Sahih" in Abū Dāwūd—and argue that the case for female circumcision is now proven.

But they are misreading the evidence.

The phrase "circumcised meets the circumcised" is a euphemism for sexual intercourse. It is a rhetorical device, not a command to perform female circumcision. The hadiths in question are about ritual purification (ghusl) after intercourse—not about the obligation of circumcision.

Let us examine each narration carefully.

The Hadiths in Context

1. The Hadith of 'Ā'ishah (Tirmidhī 109)

"إِذَا جَاوَزَ الْخِتَانُ الْخِتَانَ وَجَبَ الْغُسْلُ"

"When the circumcised (male) passes beyond the circumcised (female), then ghusl is obligatory."

This hadith is about the point at which ghusl becomes obligatory after intercourse. The phrase "circumcised meets the circumcised" is a euphemism for penetration. It assumes that both parties are circumcised—but the purpose of the hadith is not to command circumcision; it is to define the threshold for ritual purity.

The grade of the hadith does not change its content. It is sahih. It is authentic. But it is authentic about the ruling on ghusl, not about the obligation of female circumcision.

2. The Hadith of Abū Hurayrah (Abū Dāwūd 216)

"إِذَا قَعَدَ بَيْنَ شُعَبِهَا الأَرْبَعِ وَأَلْزَقَ الْخِتَانَ بِالْخِتَانِ فَقَدْ وَجَبَ الْغُسْلُ"

"When he sits between her four limbs and the circumcised (male) is pressed against the circumcised (female), then ghusl is obligatory."

Again, this is a hadith about the moment when ghusl becomes obligatory. The description is graphic: "sits between her four limbs" is a euphemism for intercourse. "The circumcised meets the circumcised" is a euphemism for penetration.

The hadith is sahih. It is authentic. But it is authentic about the ruling on ghusl.

3. The Hadith of 'Ā'ishah (Tirmidhī 108)

"إِذَا جَاوَزَ الْخِتَانُ الْخِتَانَ فَقَدْ وَجَبَ الْغُسْلُ فَعَلْتُهُ أَنَا وَرَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم فَاغْتَسَلْنَا"

"When the circumcised meets the circumcised, then ghusl is obligatory. I (the circumcised female) and the Messenger of Allah (the circumcised male) did it, and we performed ghusl."

This narration adds an important detail: 'Ā'ishah says "I did it"—meaning she had intercourse. The phrase "circumcised meets the circumcised" is used to describe that act. It does not say: "The Prophet commanded female circumcision." It says: "We had intercourse, and then we performed ghusl."

4. The Hadith of Abū Mūsā al-Ash'arī (Muslim 349)

This is the most detailed narration. Abū Mūsā reports that there was a dispute between the Muhājirūn and the Anṣār about when ghusl becomes obligatory. He goes to 'Ā'ishah to ask her. She says:

"عَلَى الْخَبِيرِ سَقَطْتَ، قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم: إِذَا جَلَسَ بَيْنَ شُعَبِهَا الأَرْبَعِ وَمَسَّ الْخِتَانُ الْخِتَانَ فَقَدْ وَجَبَ الْغُسْلُ"

"You have come to one who knows. The Messenger of Allah said: 'When he sits between her four limbs and the circumcised (male) touches the circumcised (female), then ghusl is obligatory.'"

Again, the focus is on the ruling for ghusl. The phrase "the circumcised touches the circumcised" is a euphemism for penetration. The hadith is sahih. It is authentic. But it is authentic about the ruling on ghusl.

The hadiths are not about the obligation of circumcision. They are about the ruling on ghusl. They assume that both parties are circumcised—because in the 7th-century Arabian context, that was the norm for both men and women in some communities. But the hadiths do not command circumcision. They use circumcision as a cultural reference point to describe the act of intercourse.

The Misuse of These Hadiths

Those who cite these hadiths as proof that female circumcision is obligatory in Islam are committing a category error. They are taking a hadith about ghusl and using it to establish a ruling about circumcision. This is not how Islamic jurisprudence works.

The ruling on ghusl is derived from these hadiths. The ruling on female circumcision is not derived from these hadiths. They are simply evidence that in 7th-century Arabia, some women—including the Prophet's wives—were circumcised. They do not establish that circumcision is obligatory, or even recommended.

The practice of circumcision existed. The hadiths acknowledge that reality. They do not command it.

These hadiths teach an important ruling: ghusl is required after penetration, even without ejaculation. This was a point of dispute between the Muhājirūn and the Anṣār, and 'Ā'ishah resolved it by citing the Prophet's teaching.

The ruling is clear. The hadiths are strong. But they are about ghusl, not about circumcision.

The Inescapable Conclusion

Those who cite the "circumcised meets the circumcised" hadiths to prove that female circumcision is obligatory in Islam are making a fundamental error. They are confusing a euphemism for intercourse with a command to circumcise. They are taking hadiths about ghusl and using them to establish a ruling about khitān.

The hadiths are sahih. They are authentic. But they are authentic about the ruling on ghusl, not about the obligation of female circumcision.

The practice of female circumcision existed in 7th-century Arabia. The hadiths acknowledge that reality. But they do not command it. They do not make it obligatory. And the hadiths that do address female circumcision directly are weak, as we have seen.

The cut was never commanded. The "circumcised meets the circumcised" hadiths prove only that circumcision existed—not that it was required.

Section II.V: The Narrations in Al-Adab al-Mufrad — When Bukhari Was Less Strict

The Book: Al-Adab al-Mufrad — A Different Standard

Imam al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870) is renowned for the most rigorous standards of hadith authentication in his Ṣaḥīḥ. But Al-Adab al-Mufrad ("The Book of Manners") is a different work. It was compiled earlier, before Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, and al-Bukhārī applied a different standard to its narrations. He included hadiths that he considered hasan (good) or even da'īf (weak) —not only ṣaḥīḥ (authentic). Scholars of hadith have long recognized that the narrations in Al-Adab al-Mufrad must be evaluated individually; they do not carry the same automatic authenticity as those in the Ṣaḥīḥ.

The narrations cited from Al-Adab al-Mufrad on female circumcision are weak. They fail the standards of classical hadith criticism in multiple ways: unknown narrators (majhūl), broken chains (munqaṭi'), and problematic transmitters.

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Narration 1: Umm al-Muhājir and the Captive Women

Arabic Text:

حَدَّثَنَا مُوسَى بْنُ إِسْمَاعِيلَ، قَالَ‏:‏ حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ الْوَاحِدِ قَالَ‏:‏ حَدَّثَتْنَا عَجُوزٌ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْكُوفَةِ جَدَّةُ عَلِيِّ بْنِ غُرَابٍ قَالَتْ‏:‏ حَدَّثَتْنِي أُمُّ الْمُهَاجِرِ قَالَتْ‏:‏ سُبِيتُ فِي جَوَارِي مِنَ الرُّومِ، فَعَرَضَ عَلَيْنَا عُثْمَانُ الإِسْلاَمَ، فَلَمْ يُسْلِمْ مِنَّا غَيْرِي وَغَيْرُ أُخْرَى، فَقَالَ عُثْمَانُ‏:‏ اذْهَبُوا فَاخْفِضُوهُمَا، وَطَهِّرُوهُمَا‏.‏

Translation:

Mūsā ibn Ismā'īl narrated to us: 'Abd al-Wāḥid narrated to us: An old woman from Kufa, the grandmother of 'Alī ibn Ghurāb, narrated to us, saying: Umm al-Muhājir narrated to me, saying: "I was taken captive among other female captives from the Romans. 'Uthmān presented Islam to us, and no one among us accepted Islam except myself and one other. So 'Uthmān said: 'Go and perform khifāḍ (female circumcision) on them, and purify them.'"'

The Chain of Transmission

Narrator	Assessment	Source of Criticism
Mūsā ibn Ismā'īl	Reliable	No major issue
'Abd al-Wāḥid	'Abd al-Wāḥid ibn Ziyād — acceptable	—
An old woman from Kufa, grandmother of 'Alī ibn Ghurāb	Unknown (majhūlah)	She is not named. She is identified only by her relationship to a later narrator. This is a critical weakness.

This chain is broken by an unknown narrator, an unnamed "old woman from Kufa." It cannot be used as evidence for a religious ruling.

Narration 2: 'Ā'ishah and the Daughters of Her Brother

Arabic Text:

حَدَّثَنَا أَصْبَغُ قَالَ‏:‏ أَخْبَرَنِي ابْنُ وَهْبٍ قَالَ‏:‏ أَخْبَرَنِي عَمْرٌو، أَنَّ بُكَيْرًا حَدَّثَهُ، أَنَّ أُمَّ عَلْقَمَةَ أَخْبَرَتْهُ، أَنَّ بَنَاتَ أَخِي عَائِشَةَ اخْتُتِنَّ، فَقِيلَ لِعَائِشَةَ‏:‏ أَلاَ نَدْعُو لَهُنَّ مَنْ يُلْهِيهِنَّ‏؟‏ قَالَتْ‏:‏ بَلَى‏.‏ فَأَرْسَلْتُ إِلَى عَدِيٍّ فَأَتَاهُنَّ، فَمَرَّتْ عَائِشَةُ فِي الْبَيْتِ فَرَأَتْهُ يَتَغَنَّى وَيُحَرِّكُ رَأْسَهُ طَرَبًا، وَكَانَ ذَا شَعْرٍ كَثِيرٍ، فَقَالَتْ‏:‏ أُفٍّ، شَيْطَانٌ، أَخْرِجُوهُ، أَخْرِجُوهُ‏.‏

Translation:

Aṣbagh narrated to us: Ibn Wahb informed me: 'Amr informed me that Bukayr narrated to him that Umm 'Alqamah informed him that the daughters of 'Ā'ishah's brother were circumcised. Someone said to 'Ā'ishah: "Shall we call someone to entertain them?" She said: "Yes." So she sent for 'Adī, and he came to them. Then 'Ā'ishah passed by in the house and saw him singing and moving his head in excitement, and he had much hair. She said: "Ugh! A devil! Take him out! Take him out!"

The Chain of Transmission

Narrator	Assessment	Source of Criticism
Aṣbagh	Aṣbagh ibn al-Faraj (d. 225/840) — reliable	—
'Abd Allāh ibn Wahb (d. 197/812)	Reliable, major scholar	—
'Amr	'Amr ibn al-Ḥārith (d. 148/765) — reliable	—
Bukayr	Bukayr ibn 'Abd Allāh ibn al-Ashajj (d. 120/738) — reliable	—
Umm 'Alqamah	Unknown	Not known in the biographical dictionaries.

The Problem: The Narrator Umm 'Alqamah

Umm 'Alqamah is not a known narrator. She is not identified in the biographical dictionaries. Her reliability cannot be established.

The chain contains an unknown narrator at a critical point. Without her identity and assessment, the narration cannot be relied upon.

Even if the chain were strong, what does this narration actually prove? It reports that the daughters of 'Ā'ishah's brother were circumcised—but:

1. 'Ā'ishah did not command it. It was done by their parents.

2. 'Ā'ishah did not approve of it. The story is about her reaction to an entertainer, not about her endorsing the practice.

3. The practice was cultural, not religious. The narration does not say: "The Prophet commanded this." It reports a custom.

This narration cannot be used as evidence that female circumcision is religiously mandated.

The Broader Principle: Bukhari's Two Standards

It is essential to understand that Imam al-Bukhārī did not apply the same standard to Al-Adab al-Mufrad as he did to his Ṣaḥīḥ. In his Ṣaḥīḥ, he only included narrations that met the most rigorous criteria of authenticity. In Al-Adab al-Mufrad, he included narrations that he considered hasan or even da'īf—narrations that had some value for moral exhortation but were not strong enough to establish legal rulings.

The presence of a narration in Al-Adab al-Mufrad does not make it authentic. Each narration must be evaluated on its own merits—and when evaluated, these narrations fail.

What These Narrations Do Not Prove

Even if these narrations were authentic—which they are not—they would not prove that female circumcision is obligatory. They would only prove that:

1. Some captives were circumcised after converting to Islam.

2. Some of 'Ā'ishah's relatives were circumcised.

3. The practice existed in the early Muslim community.

They do not prove that the Prophet commanded it. They do not prove that it is obligatory. They do not prove that it is part of the fiṭrah. They are simply reports of cultural practices.

The Inescapable Conclusion

The narrations in Al-Adab al-Mufrad on female circumcision are weak (ḍa'īf). They contain unknown narrators and broken chains. They cannot be used as evidence for a religious ruling.

Imam al-Bukhārī himself would not have used these narrations to establish a legal obligation. They are in a different book, with a different standard, for a different purpose.

Conclusion: The Cut That Was Never Commanded — A Final Reckoning

We have journeyed across three millennia—from the banks of the Nile to the courts of Ctesiphon, from the medical texts of Aetius to the hadith collections of Abū Dāwūd, from the weak chains of transmission to the definitive verdicts of the classical scholars. We have left no stone unturned, no chain unexamined, no argument unchallenged. And now, at the end of this long and arduous investigation, the truth stands before us inescapable, undeniable, and devastating.

The cut was never commanded. The hadiths are weak. The practice is pre-Islamic. And Islam, in its authentic revelation, refutes it entirely.

I. The Historical Verdict: What We Have Uncovered

Our investigation has revealed a chain of evidence stretching back to the dawn of civilization:

Era	Finding	Significance
Ancient Egypt (c. 1991–1786 BCE)	Coffin Text spell 1117 references an "uncircumcised girl"	The practice existed nearly two millennia before Islam
Ptolemaic Egypt (163 BCE)	Papyrus P. Lond. I 24 records a girl named Tathemis needing circumcision "as is the custom among the Egyptians"	The practice was embedded in Egyptian culture, linked to marriage
Greco-Roman Medicine (1st c. BCE–6th c. CE)	Strabo, Aetius, Soranus, and others describe clitoridectomy as an Egyptian practice	The practice was medicalized, rationalized, and justified by the control of female desire
Pre-Islamic Arabia	The practice existed among certain Arab tribes, as evidenced by the hadith of Umm 'Atiyyah	The practice was cultural, not revelatory
Coptic Christianity	Both Muslims and Copts practiced FGM in Egypt; the Catholic Church permitted it after initially banning it	The practice is Egyptian, not Islamic; shared across religious lines
The Hadith Literature	Every single narration on female circumcision is weak (ḍa'īf)	There is no authentic command from the Prophet ﷺ
The Classical Scholars	Abū Dāwūd declared the foundational hadith weak; Ibn al-Mundhir said "there is no report to which one can return"; Ibn 'Abd al-Barr said the consensus is only for men	The classical tradition knew the evidence was weak

II. The Hadith Verdict: What the Chains Reveal

We examined every chain of transmission for every hadith on female circumcision. The results are conclusive:

Hadith	Chain	Verdict	Source of Weakness
Umm 'Atiyyah (Abū Dāwūd 5271)	Abū Dāwūd ← Marwān ← Muḥammad ibn Ḥassān ← 'Abd al-Malik ← Umm 'Atiyyah	Weak (Ḍa'īf)	Muḥammad ibn Ḥassān is majhūl (unknown); Abū Dāwūd himself declared it weak
Anas ibn Mālik (various)	Anas ← Thābit ← Zā'idah ibn Abī al-Riqād	Weak (Ḍa'īf)	Zā'idah is munkar al-ḥadīth (rejected by al-Bukhārī)
'Atiyyah al-Quraẓī	'Atiyyah ← 'Ubayd Allāh ← Yaḥyā	Broken (Munqaṭi')	Generational gap; the narrators never met
Al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Qays	al-Ḍaḥḥāk ← 'Abd al-Malik ← an unknown man from Kufa	Weak (Ḍa'īf)	Unknown narrator (mubham); al-'Alā' ibn Hilāl is munkar
'Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib (al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī)	'Alī ← Muḥammad ibn Yūnus ← Ṣāliḥ ← Muḥammad ibn Mūsā	Extremely Weak	Muḥammad ibn Yūnus is accused of lying; Ṣāliḥ is a liar and imposter
Ibn 'Umar (al-Bazzār)	Ibn 'Umar ← Mandal ibn 'Alī	Weak (Ḍa'īf)	Mandal ibn 'Alī is weak
Maymūnah (mawqūf)	Maymūnah ← 'Alī ibn 'Urwah	Weak (Ḍa'īf)	'Alī ibn 'Urwah is matrūk (abandoned)

Six marfū' chains. One mawqūf chain. Not one is free from defect. Not one can stand as evidence for a religious obligation.

III. The Classical Scholars: What They Actually Said

The classical scholars did not hide the weakness of these narrations. They acknowledged it openly:

• Imam Abū Dāwūd (d. 275/889): after citing the hadith of Umm 'Atiyyah, he declared: "هَذَا حَدِيثٌ ضَعِيفٌ" — "This is a weak hadith."

• Ibn al-Mundhir (d. 318/930), the great scholar of consensus: "لَيْسَ فِي الْخِتَانِ خَبَرٌ يَرْجِعُ إِلَيْهِ وَلاَ سُنَّةٌ تُتْبَعُ" — "There is no report on circumcision to which one can return, and no established sunnah to follow."

• Ibn 'Abd al-Barr (d. 463/1071), the great Mālikī scholar: "وَالَّذِي أَجْمَعَ عَلَيْهِ الْمُسْلِمُونَ أَنَّ الْخِتَانَ لِلرِّجَالِ" — "What the Muslims have agreed upon (ijmāʿ) is that circumcision is for men."

• Ibn Ḥajar al-'Asqalānī (d. 852/1449), the greatest commentator on Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, presented the arguments for and against female circumcision and did not declare it obligatory.

• Al-'Aẓīmābādī (d. 1353/1935), in his commentary on Sunan Abī Dāwūd, concluded: "وَحَدِيثُ خِتَانِ الْمَرْأَةِ رُوِيَ مِنْ وُجُوهٍ كَثِيرَةٍ وَكُلُّهَا ضَعِيفَةٌ مَعْلُولَةٌ مَخْدُوشَةٌ لاَ يَصِحُّ الاِحْتِجَاجُ بِهَا" — "The hadith of female circumcision has been transmitted through many chains, and all of them are weak (ḍaʿīfah), defective (maʿlūlah), and flawed (makhdūshah). It is not correct to use them as evidence."

The classical scholars knew. They told us. And we have heard them.

IV. The "Circumcised Meets the Circumcised" Hadiths: A Euphemism, Not a Command

Those who defend female circumcision will cite the hadiths about ghusl—"when the circumcised meets the circumcised." They will claim these prove the practice was widespread and accepted.

But they are misreading the evidence.

These hadiths are not about circumcision. They are about the point at which ghusl becomes obligatory after intercourse. The phrase "circumcised meets the circumcised" is a euphemism for penetration. It assumes that both parties are circumcised—but it does not command circumcision.

The hadiths are sahih. They are authentic. But they are authentic about the ruling on ghusl, not about the obligation of female circumcision.

V. The Medical Reality: Harm, Not Healing

Modern medicine has definitively established what the ancient physicians could not know: female genital mutilation causes severe, permanent harm.

Effect	Consequence
Removal of the clitoris	Eliminates the primary organ of female sexual pleasure
Scarring and nerve damage	Chronic pain, reduced sensitivity, sexual dysfunction
Psychological trauma	Anxiety, depression, PTSD
Obstetric complications	Prolonged labor, hemorrhage, maternal death
Infections and fistulas	UTIs, pelvic pain, incontinence

The ancient physicians promised chastity. They delivered mutilation. They promised control. They delivered suffering.

And the Prophet ﷺ said: "There shall be no harm inflicted nor reciprocated" (lā ḍarar wa lā ḍirār). FGM is harm. It is prohibited.

VI. The Qur'anic Refutation: What Allah Actually Commands

The Qur'an never commands female circumcision. Not once. Not in any verse. Not in any authentic interpretation.

What the Qur'an does command is:

Principle	Verse	Implication
Preservation of bodily integrity	2:195	"Do not throw yourselves into destruction"
Prohibition of harm	Prophetic maxim	FGM is quintessential harm
Respect for God's creation	30:30	The fiṭrah is not to be altered surgically
Mutual love and mercy in marriage	30:21	Marriage is affection and mercy, not control
Women as moral agents	4:124	Women are directly accountable to God

The cut violates every single one of these principles. It is harm. It is destruction. It is a desecration of God's creation. It is the opposite of affection and mercy.

VII. The Final Verdict: What Must Be Said

We have examined every piece of evidence. We have traced every chain of transmission. We have consulted the classical scholars. We have listened to the voices of the women who were cut. And we have reached a conclusion that is as clear as it is inescapable:

There is no authentic command in the Qur'an or Sunnah to perform female genital mutilation.

The hadiths that mention it are weak, broken, and rejected by the classical scholars.

The practice is a pre-Islamic Egyptian custom, rooted in the control of female sexuality, not in revelation.

The "circumcised meets the circumcised" hadiths are euphemisms for intercourse, not commands to circumcise.

The narrations in Al-Adab al-Mufrad are weak and cannot be used as evidence.

And the Qur'anic principles of mercy, justice, and the prohibition of harm render every justification for FGM null and void.

This is not a call to "reform" Islam. It is a call to restore Islam—to return to the Qur'an and authentic Sunnah, to the principles of mercy and justice that the Prophet ﷺ embodied, to the tradition of rigorous hadith criticism that the classical scholars perfected.

The cut was never commanded. The hadiths are weak. The practice is pre-Islamic. And it is time to say, with clarity and conviction: FGM has no place in Islam.

THE END

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