The Mahomedans have a tradition that their prophet declared circumcision to be a necessary rite for men, and for women honourable. This tradition makes the prophet declare it to be "Sonna," which Pocock renders a necessary rite, though Sonna, according to the explanation of Reland, does not comprehend things absolutely necessary, but such as, though the observance of them be meritorious, the neglect is not liable to punishment.
In Egypt circumcision has never been peculiar to the men, but the women also have had to undergo a practice of a similar nature. This has been called by Bruce and Strabo "excision." All the Egyptians, the Arabians, and natives to the south of Africa, the Abyssinians, the Gallas, the Agoues, the Gasats, and Gonzas, made their children undergo this operation--at no fixed time, but always before they were marriageable. Belon says the practice prevailed among the Copts; and P. Jovius and Munster say the same of the subjects of Prester John. Sonnini says it was well known that the Egyptian women were accustomed to the practice, but people were not agreed as to the motives which induced them to submit to the operation. Most of those who have written on the subject of female circumcision have considered it as the retrenchment of a portion of the nymphæ, which are said to grow, in the countries where the practice obtains, to an extraordinary size. Others have imagined that it was nothing less than the amputation of the clitoris, the elongation of which is said to be a disgusting deformity, and to be attended with other inconveniences which rendered the operation necessary.
Before he had an opportunity of ascertaining the nature of the circumcision of the Egyptian women, Sonnini also supposed it consisted of the amputation of the excrescence of the nymphæ or clitoris, according to circumstances, and according as the parts were more or less elongated. He says it is very probable that these operations have been performed, not only in Egypt, but in several other countries in the East, where the heat of the climate and other causes may produce too luxuriant a growth of those parts, and this, he adds, he had the more reason to think, since, on consulting several Turks who had settled at Rosetta, respecting the circumcision of their wives, he could obtain from them no other idea but that of these painful mutilations. They likewise explained to him the motives. Curious admirers as they were of smooth and polished surfaces, every inequality, every protuberance, was in their eyes a disgusting fault. They asserted too that one of these operations abated the ardour of the constitutions of their wives, and diminished their facility of procuring illicit enjoyments.