Script for my latest video on What the Patriarchy?! Below the video.
Hello, salaam, and welcome to What the Patriarchy, where we’re working to dismantle the patriarchy one Islamic feminist issue at a time! I’m Dr. Shehnaz Haqqani, PhD in Islamic Studies and an assistant professor of Religion.
Today, we continue our summary of Dr. Kecia Ali’s book Sexual Ethics & Islam, now at chapter 6, which is titled “reduce but do not destroy”: female ‘circumcision’ in Islamic Sources. I like how it says “Islamic sources” and not “Islam.”
If you HAVE to assign just one chapter from this book to a Muslim audience to complicate the idea of “Islam” to them, or if you HAVE to read just one text that will complicate what “Islam” means for you, I think this is it. It does an excellent job challenging any popular Muslim assumptions and expectations of what it means to say that something is Islamic.
Important note before I continue, Ali doesn’t use the word genital mutilation here, or circumcision, just genital cutting – and that’s a statement.
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