If you truly care, if you’re truly principled, you do something that actually attracts people’s attention. You don’t simply sit around while the leading imam at your mosque says disgusting things. With the support of the mosque. You quit.
A leader at one of Virginia’s largest mosques has resigned after the imam there made comments in support of female genital mutilation.
Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, who was director of outreach at the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, posted his resignation Friday on his website.
Abdul-Malik says he’s leaving after “many reprehensible statements” by Dar Al-Hijrah’s senior imam, Shaker Elsayed, including his recent comments on genital mutilation.
I like “reprehensible.” But I like “many” even more. When this sort of thing happens to hit the news, public statements typically suggest the speaker was having a bad day or stumbled over his words blah blah. The miscreant himself, in his bizarre (and now recanted?) apology, suggested as much.
No, no, says his colleague. The guy preaches much that is reprehensible. So reprehensible, and so supported by the mosque, that Abdul-Malik has no choice but to leave.
Due to the lack of decisive leadership and on the part of the board of directors of The Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center and after many reprehensible statements made by the senior Imam, Shaker Elsayed, including the most recent statements on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) or female circumcision and especially after his public recanting of his apology I hereby resign my position as Director of Outreach.
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“A lot of Muslims feel like they’ve been under attack and feel like they’ve made a lot of concessions since 9/11 and now they want to plant this flag on this hill,” [says one observer].
Hell of a hill.
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FGM is a practice that, by virtue of the gravity of the harms it causes, can appropriately be called evil, yet it is not done out of evil intent.
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The fundamental societal motive for FGM stems from a belief held by several cultures; cutting away a woman’s genitals leads to stable marriages. The rationale is that if the woman is incapable of experiencing sexual pleasure, she will not be tempted to seek it outside her marriage, and devote herself to satisfying her husband.
Cultural sovereignty must yield to universal human rights when some basic, objectively vital rights such as life, health, bodily integrity etc. (which most cultures do, or should, value) are violated. The argument is one in favour of universal rights, not identical practices, and hence, the diversity and uniqueness of cultures will continue, which is the essence of multiculturalism.