LAILA AL-MARAYATI

The ruling by an Egyptian court overturning a government ban on female circumcision is clearly a case of a government using religion for the purposes of maintaining a repugnant practice. The Mubarak administration is sacrificing women to quiet the Muslim opposition in order to appear more religious. As mentioned in the article, the majority of one billion Muslims worldwide do not practice female circumcision. In fact, this custom, which predated Islam, goes against the principles of true Islam, which guarantees a woman's right to sexual satisfaction... What is the result of female circumcision? Only a lifelong sentence of physical and emotional scarring…. We call on Muslims worldwide to be courageous enough to speak out against this abhorrent practice.

The ruling by an Egyptian court overturning a government ban on female circumcision is clearly a case of a government using religion for the purposes of maintaining a repugnant practice. The Mubarak administration is sacrificing women to quiet the Muslim opposition in order to appear more religious. As mentioned in the article, the majority of one billion Muslims worldwide do not practice female circumcision. In fact, this custom, which predated Islam, goes against the principles of true Islam, which guarantees a woman's right to sexual satisfaction... What is the result of female circumcision? Only a lifelong sentence of physical and emotional scarring…. We call on Muslims worldwide to be courageous enough to speak out against this abhorrent practice.