The world’s best known Islamic scholar, Sheikh Prof.Dr. Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, on 2 March 2009 in Doha (Qatar), issued a fatwa on the initiative of the German Rüdiger Nehberg and his organisation TARGET’s stating: “Female genital mutilation means altering what God has created and is therefore the work of the devil and forbidden by God. It must be stopped”.

This means hope for millions of girls in the 35 countries where female genital mutilation is common. Sheikh Prof.Dr. Yusuf Al-Qaradawi is known to Muslims as “Africa’s mouthpiece”. His pronouncements carry great weight throughout the Islamic world and he has the reputation of being a “walking encyclopaedia of Islam”. He enjoys top ratings for his preaching series “Sharia and life” broadcast each Sunday evening on Al-Jazeera that attracts a following of millions of viewers.

According to Qaradawi, there is no duty whatsoever in Islam’s holy texts to practise female genital mutilation. He says in his fatwa: “Since factual examination by neutral experts and specialists (...) has proved that female genital mutilation (...) causes bodily and spiritual damage to the female sex and seriously harms a woman’s married life, this custom must be stopped...” Scholars will from now on advise parents not to have their daughters circumcised.

Many scholars, Qaradawi included, have in the past judged otherwise. Qaradawi explains that this was because information that is available today was not so before. When the extent of our knowledge changes, it is at any time both possible and sometimes necessary to alter a fatwa. “If scholars before our time had found out what we now know, they would have changed their minds because they always sought the truth”, he wrote.
Sheikh Prof.Dr. Yusuf Al-Qaradawi is a controversial figure in Europe and the US, not least due to his outspoken criticism of the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. Rüdiger Nehberg however comments: “We should only judge him on what he has done for our cause”. Nehberg spent four hours discussing matters with Qaradawi. He was allowed to vide record the scholar’s core arguments with a view to making them public. Nehberg was advised during the meeting by the Austrian Imam Tarafa Baghajati.