There is a widespread view among practitioners of female genital mutilation (FGM) that it is a religious requirement,[2][3][4][9] although prevalence rates often vary according to geography and ethnic group.

[10] There is an ongoing debate about the extent to which the practice's continuation is influenced by custom, social pressure, lack of health-care information, and the position of women in society.

[14] The practice is not required by most forms of Islam and fatwas have been issued forbidding FGM,[15] favouring it,[16] or leaving the decision to parents but advising against it.

[17][18] However, FGM was introduced in Southeast Asia by the spread of Shafi'i version of Islamic jurisprudence, which considers the practice obligatory.

[8] There are four WHO categories: FGM is concentrated in what Gerry Mackie called an "intriguingly contiguous" zone in Africa—east to west from Somalia to Senegal, and north to south from Egypt to Tanzania.

[30] The practice's distribution in Africa meets in Nubia in the Sudan, leading Mackie to suggest that Type III FGM began there with the Meroite civilization (c. 800 BCE – c. 350 CE) to increase confidence in paternity.

[33] Spell 1117 of the Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts may refer to an uncircumcised girl ('m't), although there is disagreement about the word's meaning.

[43] When, in the 1930s, Christian missionaries tried to make the abandonment of FGM a condition of church membership in colonial Kenya, they provoked a far-reaching campaign in defence of the practice.

[44] Despite the absence of scriptural support, women and girls within Christian communities, including in Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania, do undergo FGM.

[22] A 2013 UNICEF report identified 17 African countries in which at least 10 percent of Christian women and girls aged 15–49 had undergone it.

[25] The Skoptsy Christian sect in Europe practices FGM as part of redemption from sin and to remain chaste.

[48] Islamic scholars Abū Dāwūd and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal reported that Muhammad said circumcision was a "law for men and a preservation of honor for women" however these narrations or Hadith are regarded as daʻīf (weak).

[49][50] In a reported narration Muhammad made female genital cutting optional, but he warned against harming women.

[62] The Hanafi and Hanbali schools of Islamic jurisprudence view it as makrumā for women ("noble", as opposed to obligatory).

According to reporter Mariz Tadros, they "offered to circumcise women for a nominal fee as part of their community services, a move that threatens to reverse decades of local struggle against the harmful practice. ...

Many of the Brothers (and Salafis) argue that while it is not mandatory, it is nevertheless makrumā (noble, preferable, pleasing in the eyes of God).

[69] According to William Clarence-Smith, Islamic Southeast Asia "overwhelmingly" follows the Shafi`i school of law, the only one to make FGM obligatory.

The greatest opposition in the area, he writes, is from syncretic Muslims in Java; some practitioners use the root of the turmeric plant to perform an alternative symbolic procedure.

[75] In 2013 the Indonesian Ulema Council, Indonesia's top Muslim clerical body, ruled that it favours FGM, stating that although it is not mandatory, it is "morally recommended".

[79] Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the highest-ranking Shia (Marja’) in Iraq and the leader of the Hawza (Islamic University) of Najaf, forbids FGM on his website:[This quote needs a citation]Question: Is female circumcision obligatory or is tradition and merely recommended?

Answer: If the purpose of female genital circumcision is cutting clitoris this operation is not right and is not a religious tradition.

[citation needed] FGM is performed within the Dawoodi Bohra community in India, Pakistan, Yemen and East Africa.

[81] In 2017 two doctors and a third woman connected to the Dawoodi Bohra in Detroit, Michigan, were arrested on charges of conducting FGM on two seven-year-old girls in the United States.

[82] In Pakistan and India female genital mutilation is practiced by Muslims of the Dawoodi Bohra and Sheedi communities, who believe that it leads to purity.

[83][84][85][86] Most forms of Judaism require male circumcision, but they do not allow FGM and the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) does not mention it.

[23][87] The Beta Israel were not familiar with the Talmud, the Mishnah, and other rabbinical literature, and read and spoke little or no Hebrew.