Revival of Female circumcision in the Maldives

I knew about female circumcision when I was in high school. A friend told to a group of us that her Aunt was circumcised when she was young. I never gave much thought to what she said may be because I was just ignorant. Since then I never heard about it untill I saw a documentary on Muslim female circumcision in North Africa. The interviews of many parties involved were included; as some denied that female circumcision was Islamic but in fact is a tradition and culture of the specific tribes or regions. Authors have said that it was more traditional or cultural belief than a religiously motivated as there is no evidence in religious texts regarding female circumcisions. Recently, I saw headline on a female circumcision outbreak in South of Maldives posted on Haveeru daily news paper. It seems that it was a religious jurists or theologians who are issuing fatwa among midwives regarding the female circumcision. However, the issue was brought to media by the attorney general who seems has authentic sources of such information. But when I went through some comments made by readers, the readers are not very sure about the authenticity of the issue. Hence, I am not sure if it is a tool used to achieve political agenda or it is revived in Maldives again. Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, has said that male circumcision is important rite of initiation in Islam however, there is nothing in the religious sources, Qur’an and Sunnah, which suggests that it is prescribed ritual of initiation for women in Islam. Moreover, the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) indicated and ordered pagan males who converted to Islam to undergo circumcision but there is no evident that the Prophet ordered female converts to undergo circumcision. Hence, as the Prophet did not mention clearly about female circumcision, it is evident that female circumcision is not obligatory in Islam and it was not rooted from historical Islam and is not a principle of Islam. Moreover as many jurists argued that it is more cultural and reinvention to the tradition by the people. Hence, it is also possible that whatever is happening in Maldives is influenced by the cultural aspects of another nation or region where the theologians have acquired their education. Likewise, may be a tactic used by these jurists to revive Islam in Maldives as they fear current situation in Maldives is contributing to the deviations from authentic Islam. There is also possibility that the politicians are just spreading rumours to achieve a political agenda. Whatever is the reason, it is not very ethical thing to attach religion to these kinds of acts and mislead people. These reinventions to religion is one of the reason why the ‘others’ got chance to criticize Islam. They always use this kind of things to blame Islam as religion and the actions of current Muslims indeed, are giving them opportunity to succeed in their propaganda against Islam. Hence, Maldivians need to be more cautious.