Quote:
Originally Posted by dlish
as a muslim male currently living in the middle east, i find your comments quite irrational.
are you talking about male mutilation older men/boys in muslim countries?
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Dude, I said SOME muslim circumcision practices can be horrifying. Not all, or even most.
I don't think this is an irrational statement at all considering how many of the bedouin tribes handle the issue:
"In Bedouin tribes circumcision is a puberty rite, or test of manhood, enacted on boys between the ages of ten and fifteen. The rite is called es-selkh (the flaying). As the name implies,not merely the prepuce, but the entire sheath of the penis is longitudinally slit and sliced off, leaving the "rod" like a skinned eel. As a rule, youths look forward to the ordeal with masochistic or fatalistic abandon. They pull each other's drawers down and stand proudly naked, not daring to move a muscle or cry out
Jacabus observed that in Arab circumcision the skin of the sheath of the penis and the mucous membrane are cut at the same level, and after the operation is completed there is absolutely no prepuce. This is the desired result. The penis is literally strained to stiffness when erect, for the skin is stretched tight, and the entire glans, including the corona, and the neck of the corona are fully exposed by the retraction."
Traditional Moslem circumcision rites
And a bit dated, but I doubt the practice has changed much in the rural areas:
"Circumcision, although nowhere mentioned in the Koran, is generally regarded as obligatory for Moslems following the example of the prophet Mohammed himself, who was circumcised in accordance with Arab custom. No uncircumcised person may lawfully make the pilgrimage to Mecca. Among the tribes in southern Iraq … the operation was often deferred until manhood … and was seldom performed before puberty. It was done by specialists who travelled round from village to village in the summer. Their traditional fee was a cock [!], but more often they charged five shillings. The examples of their work which I saw were terrifying. They used a dirty razor, a piece of string and no antiseptics. Having finished, they sprinkled the wound with a special powder, made from the dried foreskins of their previous victims, and then bound it up with a tight rag. People living under these conditions acquire a remarkable resistance to infection, but they could not resist this, and boys sometimes took two months to recover, suffering great pain in the meanwhile.
One young man came to me for treatment ten days after his circumcision, and although I am fairly inured to unpleasant sights and smells, the stench made me retch. His entire penis, his scrotum and the inside of his thighs were a suppurating mess from which the skin was sloughing away, the pus trickling down his legs. I cured him eventually with antibiotics.
In spite of the social stigma of being uncircumcised, some boys not unnaturally refused. In other cases the fathers would not allow their sons to be operated on because there was no one else to look after the buffaloes. A few maintained that they had been circumcised by an angel at birth, a superstition that is also current in Egypt. Later I visited villages … where I heard that hardly anyone was circumcised."
Wilfred Thesiger, The marsh Arabs, London 1964, pp. 101-2
And, from a paper on circumcisions in Turkey and their potential complications (Last I checked Turkey was a muslim nation):
"Unfortunately, most circumcisions throughout the world are performed by traditional circumcisers rather than by medically-trained professionals. In those patients with complications, only 5% of the circumcisions were performed by doctors, 10% by health technicians and the remaining 85% by traditional circumcisers. The traditional circumcisers in Turkey are commonly devoid of any medical training and belong to other professions such as barbers, traditional drummers and male servants of health institutions. They usually perform circumcision with self-made devices similar to the Mogen clamp.
The present analysis emphasizes that the most serious complications are caused by traditional circumcisers this potentially dangerous traditional practice should be prevented. Furthermore, mass circumcisions become widespread and used by many sociopolitical relief organizations in Turkey as a method of advertisement. The present results suggest that even when performed at medical institutions, it is difficult to; provide enough sterile equipment and conditions for a safe mass circumcision. Moreover, mass circumcisions performed outside medical institutions are also becoming widespread and are mostly performed by health technicians or traditional circumcisers.
In conclusion, circumcision is an important surgical procedure which has life-long effects and should be performed singly at medical institutions by trained medical staff. Mass circumcisions commonly organized for self-advertisement or for propaganda cause significant risk and should be stopped as soon as possible."
Significantly increased complication risk with mass circumcisions
I had two Afghan interpreters on my last deployment, they told me how they were circumcised, not at a hospital as an infant, but as young boys, at home, by some 'dude' with a knife.
I know the Muslim world is not the source of all evil, but I hardly think it is irrational to point out that it is the source of many of the more disturbing circumcision practices, which often result in complications due to incompetence. And I haven't even begun to touch on Female Circumcision, which the muslim world seems to at least tolerate (I have not noticed any outrage on Al-Jazeera regarding the issue, even though in some muslim countries nearly every single female is 'circumcised.' By circumcised I mean the entire clitoris is removed as well as the majority of the Labia with the two ragged remnants of the inner labia sewn together (with thorns in some places) to prevent the woman from having sex before marriage. The husband gets the pleasure of cutting her open (with a knife) on her wedding day. In the more 'conservative' tribes the wife gets sewn up again each time the husband leaves on a trip.
Cheers!