Jochen Katz heeft geschreven in bericht <79oqur$f0...@bolero.rahul.net>...
>It was some kind of newspaper article reporting about the
>outcry against this law in Egypt by various religious
>authorities and I think to remember that Azhar scholars
>were part of it.
Perhaps this link is one of the sources:
http://www.abanet.org/irr/hr/fgm.html
mentioning:
"A notable example is the Sheikh of Al-Azhar (a prominent Islamic university
in Egypt), who publicly proclaimed recently that FGM had a place in the
jurisprudence of Islam.Under pressure from leaders like the Sheikh, the
Egyptian Ministry of Health issued a decree in 1994 which permitted
hospitals in Egypt to perform the procedure for the equivalent of three
dollars. Human rights organizations and Egyptian activists quickly organized
a strong response to the decree, which essentially medicalized and
legitimatized the practice. The Minister ultimately revoked the directive a
year later. But the controversy confirmed the strong presence of FGM in
Islamic communities.
"
The site:
http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/1996_hrp_report/Egypt.html
mentions about Al-Azhar:
"Various ministries are legally authorized to ban or confiscate books and
other works of art, upon obtaining a court order. The Islamic Research
Institute at Al-Azhar University has legal authority to censor, but not to
confiscate, all publications dealing with the Koran and Islamic scriptural
texts. In recent years the Institute has passed judgment on the suitability
of nonreligious books and artistic productions.
"
plus:
"The same year, President Mubarak stated that the Government would not allow
confiscation of books from the market without a court order, a position
supported by the then-Grand Mufti, who is now the Grand Sheik of Al-Azhar. "
The influence and history of Al-Azhar mentioned at
http://www.hrw.org/hrw/worldreport/Mideast-03.htm :
"Scholars at al-Azhar, the state-funded university which has served as an
authoritative center of Sunni Islamic scholarship for 1,000 years, "
Or perhaps Jochen is mentioning or has read parts of the following:
( http://www.healthmatters.org.uk/issues/hm4.htm )
"Egyptian human rights activists are suing the head of the leading Islamic
Institute as part of a campaign against female genital mutilation.
Members of the non-governmental Egyptian Human Rights Organisation (EOHR)
claim that the Grand Imam of the al-Azhar Institute should pay compensation
for moral damage caused by his ruling in October 1994 that ‘circumcision is
a duty for men and women, and if the citizens of a country refrain from
practising it, the Imam should challenge them as if they were ignoring the
call to prayer.’
The EOHR say the compensation should go towards funding their campaign
against female genital mutilation which aims to show ‘the harms of the
operation to both individuals and society and to clarify that this pagan
custom has no connection with Islam’.
The EOHR quote clerics, including the Grand Mufti of Egypt, who say that
nothing in Islam which supports female circumcision and that Mohammed’s
daughters were not circumcised."
Regards,
Oving.
