Is female circumcision required in Islam?

If a girl is at risk of female genital mutilation, contact your local child-protection services or emergency number. In the UK the NSPCC FGM helpline is 0800 028 3550.

Female circumcision, known today as female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM), is haram in Islam. The Quran never mentions it. The Prophet ﷺ did not circumcise his daughters, and no sound hadith commands it. The reports that later writers used to support it are weak, and the practice causes lasting harm to body and mind. For these reasons the leading scholars of al-Azhar and Egypt’s Grand Mufti declared it an inherited custom with no basis in the texts, and called on lawmakers to punish it.

Does the Quran mention female circumcision?

It does not, in any verse. The Quran speaks of the human body as Allah’s own handiwork, made in the best of forms:

لَقَدۡ خَلَقۡنَا ٱلۡإِنسَٰنَ فِيٓ أَحۡسَنِ تَقۡوِيمٖ

“We created the human being in the finest form.”

Quran 95:4

Allah has honored the children of Adam (Quran 17:70), daughters as much as sons. Cutting healthy tissue from a girl’s body, with no medical need and without her consent, wounds that honored form.

Are the hadith about female circumcision authentic?

The report quoted most often is from Umm ʿAṭiyya. It says a woman in Medina used to circumcise girls and the Prophet ﷺ told her not to cut deeply. Abu Dawud (d. 889) recorded it in his Sunan, and in the same place he judged it himself: “It is not strong,” he wrote, adding that one of its narrators “is unknown, and this hadith is weak” (Sunan Abi Dawud 5271). Some later scholars, such as al-Albani, tried to strengthen it through other routes, and many others have kept Abu Dawud’s verdict.

A second saying, “circumcision is a sunna for men and an honor for women,” appears in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad through al-Ḥajjāj ibn Arṭāt, a narrator known for concealing weak links in his chains, and hadith critics have long graded it weak. The hadith that ritual bathing is required “when the two circumcised parts meet” (Sahih Muslim 349) uses an Arabic expression for intercourse and contains no command to circumcise anyone.

The early jurist Ibn al-Mundhir (d. 930) summed up the evidence in a sentence that later scholars, including Rashid Rida, quoted with approval: “There is no report on circumcision to rely on, and no sunna to follow.”

What did the classical scholars say?

The schools of law inherited the practice from the custom of some regions and discussed it in their books. Some Shafiʿi jurists counted a minimal form as obligatory; many Hanafi, Maliki, and Hanbali jurists called it an honor (makruma, مكرمة) at most, with no duty attached. They wrote without the medical knowledge we have now, and they relied on reports whose weakness the hadith critics had already noted. Most Muslims in Turkey, Iran, and South Asia have never practiced it at all.

A ruling built on custom changes when the custom is shown to cause harm. The Prophet ﷺ said: “There is to be no harm and no harming” (Sunan Ibn Majah 2341, graded sahih by al-Albani). The Quran says:

وَلَا تُلۡقُواْ بِأَيۡدِيكُمۡ إِلَى ٱلتَّهۡلُكَةِ

“Do not throw yourselves with your own hands into ruin.”

Quran 2:195

What do al-Azhar and today’s scholars say?

In November 2006 al-Azhar University in Cairo hosted a conference of scholars and physicians on the practice. Its fatwa, signed by the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Ali Gomaa, declared female circumcision “an inherited custom” with “no textual basis in the Quran or an authentic tradition of the Prophet,” recognized that it causes physical and psychological harm, called it a punishable aggression, and asked legislators to criminalize it. At the same meeting Ali Gomaa noted that the Prophet ﷺ did not circumcise his four daughters, and the Shaykh of al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, said he found nothing in the religion that requires it.

In June 2007, after a girl named Budour Shaker died during the procedure at a clinic in Minya, Egypt’s health ministry banned it entirely. Egypt made it a crime in 2008 and has since increased the penalties. Muslim scholars and imams in Africa, Europe, and North America now teach against it from the pulpit.

The medical evidence is unambiguous. The World Health Organization reports that FGM has no health benefits and causes severe bleeding, infection, pain, complications in childbirth, and lasting trauma. More than 230 million girls and women alive today have undergone it. The objectives of the sharia (maqāṣid al-sharīʿa, مقاصد الشريعة) begin with the protection of life and body, and a practice with this record of harm falls under the ruling of the haram.

Is male circumcision different?

Male circumcision has a separate basis: it is counted among the practices of the fitra in sound hadith, it was practiced by the Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him), and it is widely accepted as medically safe when done properly. The two practices share a name and nothing else. The question of male circumcision is answered in Is male circumcision required in Islam?

How should Muslim families respond?

• Protect your daughters. No parent sins by leaving a daughter’s body as Allah made it. The sin lies in harming her.
• Speak to elders with kindness. Grandmothers and aunts who insist on the practice often believe it is religious. Share the fatwa of al-Azhar and the words of Abu Dawud, and keep the ties of family while you hold firm.
• Seek care for women who were cut. Many hospitals have specialist clinics, and counseling helps with the trauma. A woman who was cut as a child carries no blame, and her body remains honored before Allah.

Islam’s teaching on the dignity of women is gathered in What does the Quran say about women?, and the duty of parents to protect their children in Can Muslim parents hit their children? On how scholars sift weak reports from sound ones, see Are all hadith authentic?

A mercy for every daughter

The Prophet ﷺ said that whoever is given daughters and treats them generously will find them a shield from the Fire (Sahih al-Bukhari 5995). A father or mother who protects a daughter’s body, her health, and her joy is living that promise. May Allah grant every girl a childhood of safety, and heal every woman who was harmed.