Your assignment is to prepare and submit a paper on the female circumcision controversy.

Your assignment is to prepare and submit a paper on the female circumcision controversy. Female circumcision is practiced by people of many ethnicities and various religious backgrounds including Muslims, Christians and Jews as well as followers of traditional African religions”.(2000,p.33)The unfortunate part of this procedure in all these three religions is that it is practiced in the name of God. Islamic scholars are a divided lot on the issue and are not willing to concede or reject whether genital cutting was sanctioned or condemned in Qur’an. The practice is not uniformly practiced in Muslim countries. It is in vogue in some parts of the Arabian Peninsula and in African countries. The author writes “This book offers my understanding of the relationship between female circumcision and the status of women, from both a global perspective and more specifically as I have come to understand it in Sudan”(2000,p.33).The practice is forbidden in Judaism, with exceptions. A section of Ethiopian Jews, formerly known as Falasha and now living in Israel, continue with this practice. In Ethiopia the operation was performed exclusively by a female Jewish doctor. Having settled in Israel, the practice is discontinued. According to Judaism the body of human beings belongs to God and as such it cannot be defiled by human beings. No such practice exists in Christianity as a rule but a part of African Christians still practice it and it was there before the missionaries arrived.

People practice female circumcision/mutilation because of their tragic mental imbalances. No other justification can be given to this practice by the right-thinking people. The author writes “Most Christians I know are shocked to think about female circumcision and cannot imagine believing God would want it. Most Jews consider only male circumcision to be commanded by God. Most theologians in the Islamic faith consider female circumcision to be completely unnecessary and argue that it is contrary to true Islam” (2000, p. 60).