...even circumcised their females and he pbuh is reported to have told them not to cut deep, indicating that he neither forbade female circumcision, nor recommended it, but put limitations on it, thus indicating that there may be instances where it is necessary and that he wasn't risking people forbidding it based on his statement in future - if the narration is indeed true. Honest and unbiased medical observations free from manipulation due to conflict of interest would help us understand it further.
Thanks Abz2000, for taking the time to post all you did. Muhammad always strikes me as extremely considerate (though there are some anecdotes about him killing mocking-poets that I found upsetting to read). 'Prophet' seems self-defined as a top-philosopher, who gains a huge following. It ought be taken (imho) that Muhammad naturally abrogates former prophets by being a better one, and that that is right and beneficial, especially in the matter of NOT ascribing partners to God (this negates Abraham and Genesis 1:26 in its entirety, istm).
While I see that there are anecdotes about infant circumcision within Islam, infant circumcision is clearly NOT mandated in Islam (according to all I see in this thread), even if fitra recommends it, all-things-considered, said fitra in no way implies that it need be practiced on infants.
I disagree with the last sentence of yours, as quoted above (doctors very easily fall into a state of illusion/group-think, and they cannot report the 'feelings' of infants; they can easily be A Confederacy of Dunces, so-to-speak). Allah gave us foreskin. To cut it is not comparable to cutting nails or hair, as that tissue is dead/without feeling. But again, an adult wanting to practice fitra, including circumcision is nowhere on my own philosophical radar. It is, for me, a completely different topic, that does not interest or concern me (as is some bit of infant circumcision where it is clearly medically necessary, as it is apparently a common place for parts to mis-form during gestation).
Alas, I was traumatized by the act (Maimonides even suggests that that trauma is purposeful), and so go against it pretty hard. I tried to tell a retired nurse-friend the other day, as a point of fact, trauma is scaled (and cumulative), and that not every circumcised infant suffers it the same. I had to laugh when she turned the tables on me (I have only been present at my own circumcision, but she had been present at many), and she, as witness, corrected my waffling about the scaling of trauma.
Anyway, I am altogether out of monotheism. Monotheism seems to me as breaking-rank. The partner of God is nature, not ascribed by man, but clearly ascribed by God, and it seems insubordinate to try to get around that God-assigned sovereign. This is why polytheists solicited the many gods of nature to carry their wishes to the Godhead, Allah, for them (its folkish and metaphorical, and I like it better for that reason alone, and tend to belabor what I call mythology-literalism).
I sit in fellowship at two different round-table groups, I can only come up with the word 'naturalist' as a philosophical identifier (everyone considers themselves as they wish in these groups, including Muslim).
pbuy
