QARADAWI CALLS ON ENDING FEMALE CIRCUMCISION, CONSIDERS IT BANNED IN ISLAMIC LAW



President of the International Union for Muslim Scholars Dr. Yusuf Al-Qaradawi affirmed in a fatwa (an Islamic edict) published on his website the absence of any legal evidence in the Islamic religion which obliges female circumcision or makes it a preferable act adding that if a certain action is proven by specialists to cause harmful results stopping this act would be obliged in order to block any route to corruption and to prevent harm. In this case, specialists found that circumcision in its current form harms females physically and psychologically as it negatively affects their marital life, therefore Al-Qaradawi considered the conduction of a circumcision surgery banned according to Islamic law.

On the other hand, Al-Qaradawi supported the stance of Azhar Sheikhs and Scholars concerning organ transplantation affirming that Saudi Arabia which is considered “rigid in Islamic jurisprudence and usually goes with the literal meaning of Islamic text permits organ transplantation,” adding, “Although the human’s body belongs to Allah, Allah has delegated authority over this body to the human to enable him to take care of it and did not prohibit blood donations.”

Al-Qaradawi also permitted organ transplants from living to living beings provided that it be in the form of a donation as a donation is considered a charity and provided that the organ not be single such as the kidney or heart or one which the human can do without. Similarly, the donation of reproductive organs even after the death of a person is not permitted as it continues to carry genetic “codes” while the transplantation of a dead person’s organs is permitted only after the death of the brain’s stem when return to life becomes no longer possible.