Ismail Berdiyev, a leading mufti from Russia’s North Caucasus region, has called for the universal use of clitoridectomy, or female genital mutilation, for “all women to reduce lechery” and “sexuality.” The shocking and disgusting proclamation by Berdiyev is magnified by the the supportive public statement by a senior priest in the Russian Orthodox Church, Vsevolod Chaplin, who wrote on Facebook: “My sympathies for the mufti. I hope he doesn’t retreat from his position because of the howls and hysterics which will start now.”
Berdiyev insisted that FGM is the only moral course for women and that “All women should be cut, so that there is no depravity on Earth.” He explained that “It is necessary to reduce a woman’s sexuality, and it would be good if this [FGM] were done to all women. God created women so that they can have children and bring them up. This [FGM] has nothing to do with that; women do not stop giving birth after having this done.”
Of course, FGM is widely viewed as a criminal act of abuse — an act that has been performed on some 200 million women and girls. It is condemned by the United Nations and doctors worldwide as harmful and discriminatory.
When international groups and leading advocates denounced Berdiyev, the Mufti insisted that it was a “joke.” Not to suggest that a religious figure would ever knowingly lie, but reading the comments above would not seem a joke in any language. It is a detailed advocacy for FGM, which is notoriously common in that area.
As for Chaplin, he certainly did not take it as a joke and defended the Mufti’s support for “his time-honored traditions, recognized by the majority of women living under this tradition.” Chaplin then added that “feminism is a 20th century lie.” However, he also noted that the reason FGM is not required for Christian women is that “they are not debauched anyway.”
Mercy, do you live in Russia?
I never before heard of FGM being a common practice in Russia before.
I have seen one reference in health, but most Muslims I know think its done by ignorant and backward folks.
Hadith, not health!
Ignorance, ignorance, ignorance! That is the worst enemy of the human being. Humanistic Education is the only answer to so much ignorance that allows exploitation and cruel treatment of others by a selected few.
Einstein used to say that stupidity is infinite in humankind. This proves that he was right.
Can’t Russia’s FSB just assassinate him?
Sierra Rose:
Although FGM does predate Islam, the vast majority of those who practice it are Muslim. The Prophet referenced it in his admonishment to cut women, but do so lightly. It is mentioned multiple times in the Hadith.
It is also true that not all Muslim countries practice it. Persians consider it the practice of ignorant hicks in Africa and UAE.
Reblogged this on The Practical Vegetarian Weblog and commented:
The Mufti’s proclamation is not as “shocking” as the Priest who goes along with him. FGM is evidently a tradition in Islam but to bring it over to Christianity and to all other women, in the Priest’s opinion, is dangerous. If they were to try to carry this out, I wonder how the Russian women will react – I bet they will fight back!
Hey, Ismail:
Will ya take a little advice? Bring friends. Lots of em.
Darn! The Muzzie dude may be right!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
@Squeeky:
““Breaking up with one partner and mating with another may more accurately characterise the common, perhaps the primary, mating strategy of humans.””
Actually it is not serial monogamy, the “breaking up with one partner and mating with another”, that causes all the problems.
It is the keeping one partner in the dark and mating with another partner that presents issues. But there is a bright side – that is equally true whether you are male or female.
At last, equality of the sexes.
The really tragic part of this is there is nothing in the Koran that calls for this. Many people associate this practice with Islam, but it is actually a regional practice that predates Islam. It is manly found in portions of Africa where it is practiced by a variety of religious groups, including Christians, Jews, Muslims, and people who practice traditional religions. There are also a few places in Latin America and Asia with such practices. In most cases it has more to do with group identity and other cultural values than with sexual suppression. All societies which practice female circumcision also practice male and there are a lot more societies that practice male. By the way I am not referring to male circumcision done to infants in nice sterile hospitals. I am referring to practices done to older boys and men in similar circumstances and for similar reasons as that of females. Male versions are often much more invasive than just the removal of the foreskin as well.
The tragedy is that Chaplin and Berdiyev are not some fringe lunatics rambling in the subway. This is the norm for many extremist areas.
Female Genital Mutilation not only removes the source of pleasure, but it also sews the labia shut. That is why there is this certain walk that girls do after getting mutilated, for weeks. They walk like they are trying to hold a ball between their knees in a vain effort to reduce the pain of movement. There is just a tiny area where menstrual fluid can drip out, which can get clogged and infected. There is hard scar tissue in an area that was created to be elastic. This is why childbirth is so dangerous for a mutilated woman. They tear, badly. This is why a severely cut woman requires a knife to allow her to have a wedding night. This makes women not only feel no pleasure at sex, but fear it, because it can be excruciatingly painful. This is severe, constant torture on millions of little girls. And what sends me into the stratosphere is that although it is required by males, it is perpetrated by females. It is usually the grandmother who organizes it. They believe the girls won’t ever make a good marriage unless they are mutilated. But who would even want to get married and face a lifetime of pain like that?
And Chaplin is clearly demonstrating the current trend – a misguided belief that you need to accept and support other cultures, regardless of how they treat human rights. As this comment in Heifer International’s World Ark says, “When we ‘respect’ the cultures that discriminate, we are really only respecting half the population.”
As immigration has risen, so has Female Genital Mutilation. Often, families return to the Old Country to “visit” and have their little girls mutilated, then return to the US. So this is actually happening to American citizens.
http://www.newsweek.com/fgm-rates-have-doubled-us-2004-304773
“More than half a million women and girls in the U.S. are at risk of undergoing FGM in the U.S. or abroad, or have already undergone the procedure, including 166,173 under the age of 18, according to the Population Reference Bureau (PRB). Immigration to the U.S. from African and Middle Eastern countries—where the practice of FGM is a deeply entrenched cultural tradition—is the sole factor for the rise in numbers, says Mark Mather, a demographer at PRB who led the data analysis. There has not been an increase in the practice happening in the U.S. itself, he says.”
Islam in any form is the antithesis of everything the West stands for, yet we have allowed millions of these depraved individuals to live among us in the name of toleration. The old saying ” you can’t protect a fool from himself” was never so applicable.
Must be a masochistic contest between mullahs and imams and muftis and other twisted ‘religious’ freaks. ‘Hey, mufti buddy, I bet I can cause more needless, barbaric, torturous pain than you can!’ Other religious freak, ‘Wanna bet!’
Wouldn’t that be Sadistic? I thought masochism was one who welcomed tortuous pain, like the early monks or modern day burka wearers who claim to be islamic feminists, not one who orders for it to be dished out on others.