The circumcision of females is also allowed, and is commonly practised in Arabia. (Fatāwa ʿĀlamgīrī, vol. iv. p. 237.)
The barber is generally the person employed for the circumcision of boys, and the operation as practised by Muḥammadans in India is performed in the following manner. A bit of stick is used as a probe, and carried round and round between the glans and prepuce, to ascertain the exact extent of the frænum, and that no unnatural adhesions exist. The foreskin is then drawn forwards and a pair of forceps, consisting of a couple of pieces of split bamboo, five or six inches long and a quarter of an inch thick, tied firmly together at one end with a string to the extent of an inch, applied from above in an oblique direction, so as to exclude about an inch and a half of the prepuce above and three-quarters of an inch below. The forceps severely grasping it, causes a good deal of pain, but this state of suffering does not continue long, since the next thing to be done is the removal, which is done by one stroke of the razor drawn directly downwards. The hæmorrhage which follows is inconsiderable and easily stopped by the application of burnt rags and ashes.
According to several Muḥammadan doctors, there were seventeen of the prophets born in a circumcised state, namely, Zakarīyā, Shīs, Idrīs, Yūsuf, Ḥanz̤alah, ʿĪsā, Mūsā, Ādam, Nūḥ, Shuʿaib, Sām, Lūt̤, Ṣāliḥ, Sulaimān, Yaḥyā, Hūd, and Muḥammad. (Durru ʾl-Muk͟htār, p. 619.)
CLEAN AND UNCLEAN ANIMALS. All quadrupeds that seize their prey with their teeth, and all birds which seize it with their talons, are unlawful (ḥarām), the Prophet having prohibited mankind from eating them.
Hyenas and foxes, being both included under the class of animals of prey, are unlawful. (This is the doctrine of Abū Ḥanīfah, but ash-Shāfiʿī holds that they are lawful.) Elephants and weasels are also animals of prey. Pelicans and kites are abominable (makrūh), because they devour dead bodies.
Crows which feed on grain are mubāḥ, or indifferent, but carrion crows and ravens are unlawful. Abū Ḥanīfah says the magpie is indifferent (mubāḥ), but the Imām Yūsuf says it is abominable (makrūh).
Crocodiles and otters and wasps, and, in general, all insects are makrūh, or abominable. The ass and the mule are both unlawful. According to Abū Ḥanīfah and Mālik, horse-flesh is unlawful, but ash-Shāfiʿī says it is indifferent. The flesh of hares is also indifferent.
No animal that lives in the water, except fish, is lawful. But Mālik allows them.
Fishes dying of themselves are unlawful, and so are all animals who are not slain by ẕabāḥ. (Hidāyah, vol. iv. p. 74.) [[ZABIHAH].]
It must be observed that in Muḥammadan law animals are either ḥalāl, “lawful,” or mubāḥ, “indifferent,” or makrūh, “abominable” (i.e. which is condemned but still is lawful), or ḥarām, “unlawful.”