American Muslims

[mark85]

How is circumcision performed for most Muslims in America? I don't think Muslims have their own version of a mohel, so do they just get it done in a clinic? Is infant circumcision becoming more popular?

[intact]

for boys it is the usual, for girls it is the basement and your choice of edge.

[mark85]

Usual meaning infant circumcision in a hospital?

[UncutHungItal]

Generally they get the same hospital Routine Infant Circumcisions that other American babies do. I do know of a few Iranian-Americans who aren't circumcised, for one his parents were sort of hippies and for the other his parents were very nationalistic and were disgusted by the Islamic Revolution and Islam in general. But that isn't the norm.

[Tristan]

Originally Posted by intact

for boys it is the usual, for girls it is the basement and your choice of edge.

Some immigrant Muslims in America practice FGM/FCM, as do some immigrants of other religions, including Jews and Christians, but it is not accurate to suggest, as you do, that it is common or usual among all American Muslims.

[UncutHungItal]

I've never heard of any Jewish groups that practice FGM - I could be wrong but I'd be very surprised. Most Muslim Americans come from cultures that don't do FGM - Iranians, Arabs, Pakistanis/Indians. My Ethiopian friend says that FGM is on the wane in Ethiopia itself and that no Ethiopian-Americans actually do it - that's anecdotal. The only cases I've ever heard of FGM in the U.S. are West Africans.

[intact]

Egyptians love girlie circ, some kurds do, azn muslims sometimes do, for example in singapore.

[photenman]

As I understand it, Muslims outside the U.S. usually circumcise boys around puberty as part of initiation ceremonies. But they don't hold such ceremonies here so far as I know. Circumcision is not in the Muslim bible, so it is performed for quasi-religious but also cultural reasons.

Meaning that Muslims only circumcise in America (at birth) because physicians institutionalized it, and told us that it cured and prevented diseases, which it doesn't. If physicians had not brought it here, I imagine that only Jews would be performing it in the U.S.

[finman]

I have a Nigerian female friend and she was circumcised as a child in Nigeria.

[Zeg25]

Originally Posted by photenman

As I understand it, Muslims outside the U.S. usually circumcise boys around puberty as part of initiation ceremonies. But they don't hold such ceremonies here so far as I know. Circumcision is not in the Muslim bible, so it is performed for quasi-religious but also cultural reasons.

Meaning that Muslims only circumcise in America (at birth) because physicians institutionalized it, and told us that it cured and prevented diseases, which it doesn't. If physicians had not brought it here, I imagine that only Jews would be performing it in the U.S.

Muslims in Europe do it when the boy is still a child. I think the only difference America brings by having a culture that generally supports the procedure is to gear American Muslims to do it at birth instead of when their boy is like 6. Now if it were seen as being as horrible as FGM around the world then we would have a different story on our hands.