Islam against Female Genital Mutilation

In this book, I would like to stress the importance of Muslim feminism and official Islam in the struggle against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Female Genital Mutilation or Female Genital Cutting is a practice still perpetuated in many countries of the Muslim world to control women’s sexual life, oppress them, deprive them of their dignity, and avoid their sexual satisfaction. Opposing this horrible tradition, true Islam guarantees sexual rights to women. Women in Islam have the right to be sexually satisfied. Therefore, as a logical consequence, FGM is anti-Islamic, because anything that opposes women and their dignity is anti-Islamic in its core message. According to the Quranic message, men and women were created in the best form (Quran 95:4 reads: “We have created the human being in the best form”). Regarding marriage and relationships between women and men as Allah’s creatures, Quran 30:21 reads: “And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquillity in them; and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought.” If Islamic marriage is based on affection and mercy between wife and husband, how can FGM be accepted in an Islamic environment, which supports sexual satisfaction as a means of familiar and social peace and tranquillity?