Delivering the fourth chancellor’s lecture of the University of The Gambia on the topic ‘Jihad and Terrorism: An Islamic Perspective’ on Saturday, he stated: “The expression of calling moderate female circumcision as female genital mutilation is wrong. It is a practice that is allowed in Islam. It is also important to state that medically, if you carry out little female circumcision, there are no problems. If you do it excessively, there can be problems. Unfortunately, because of the culture in some countries of the world and because they are doing excessive female circumcision, it is being called genital mutilation. This is why according to scholars, there are some who say the practice is sunnah while others say it is mubah [preference]. However, medical indications again point out to the fact that if you do little of it, there will be no problems but if you do it excessively there will be problems. In Islam, there is nothing like female genital mutilation but it is called female circumcision.”
Commenting on the contentious issue of gaamo, celebration of the prophet’s birthday, he said: “I just want to give you people a master key and that is the Qur’an. In this glorious Qur’an, there is nothing like celebrating the prophet’s birthday. And also, the prophet in all the hadith never celebrated his birthday neither did the companions, their children and their grandchildren. That is where everything ends. Anything that Dr Zakir says in Islam that does not conform to the teachings of Qur’an or the sunnah of the prophet should therefore be rejected and likewise other scholars. Forget about what your sheikh says. In Islam that does not have the backing of the Qur’an and the sunnah. This will make our worship easier and free from problems. I will give you an example, we all know that the number of rakah for fajr prayers is two. If someone should come and say let us pray four rakah for fajr in order to get more reward, I do not think such a logic would apply in Islam.”
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