Force circumcision in Islam

OUR BRITISH HERITAGE AND THE SWORD OF ISLAM

Two hundred and twenty-six years ago young Warren Hastings was circumcised....forcibly! Twenty-four year old Warren, along with three hundred of his fellow English workers at the Old London Company offices in Cossimbazar, India, was stripped, sodomized, masturbated and publicly circumcised by the Moghul troops who overran the British outpost. Warren watched in fascination and horror as his prepuce was carried away in a bag containing all three hundred freshly severed foreskins....trophies for the Moslem Moghuls. Lanky, effeminately handsome Hastings, destined to become one of Britain's great colonial statesmen, wrote of his ordeal, "I, myself, was carved...." Hastings' carving was not the first time an Englishman had been circumcised at the hands of Islamic warriors, and it was not to be the last time. The Arabs, Turks and Afghans as well as the Moghuls have had their turns at plucking off British
prepuces. In southern India, Ma'ajoon, an intoxicating combination of herbs was employed during the forced circumcision of captives, producing stupification and causing the penis to rise; the aphrodisiac made the ceremony easier and, by being performed on an erect shaft, preserved much of the foreskin. Tippoo Sultaun, the tiger of Mysore, used this method on British troops to make certain they survived and, by incomplete circumcision, to brand them only partially cleansed; quasi-Mohammedans. As a prison in the Mysorean dungeons of Swendroog, Cl. Sir David Baird, a prominent Scottish officer, was thus mutilated along with other young subalterns. Baird and his fellow captives were seized by powerful Abyssisian slaves, stripped naked and staked to the ground, their limbs splayed wide. A white bearded old surgeon carefully pried his long, craggy fingers into each British penis, determining the extent of the doomed foreskin. Then the victims' mouths were
forced open, introducing Ma'ajoon. The wily old circumciser waited patiently. Soon, the drug had taken effect, and each officer experienced masochistic stimulation; teeth gritting, fist clenching, eyes transfixed as they watched their penises rise in anticipation. When each soldier's manhood stood at full flower, the old man announced, "Praise the lord! Thou art now to receive the ordinance of El-Knutneh, creating thee all to True Believer." The razor flashed once over each penis. The rings of flesh were offered to the fire as liberation to Allah. Although circumcision is not mentioned in the Koran, the prophet Mohammed himself is quoted as saying "It is an ordinance in men and honorable in women." Many Islamic theologians have insisted that Mohammed was born circumcised. Most Moslem youths, however, must wait to become "True Believer" until sometime between their adolescence and marriage, depending upon the sacred traditions of the various tribes.
In some desert areas, tribesmen include circumcision in the wedding ceremony, using the bridegroom's newly-flayed penis in a test of his "manly strength" when he consummates the marriage. Arab boys look forward to their impending circumcision, the right of passage, with eager eroticism, as they mutually masturbate their still-uncircumcised penises and retract their foreskins to show each other how they will look once they become "men". As with all Semitic races, the Arab tradition of circumcision predates their modern religion. Historians usually theorize that the practice of ritual circumcision among Semitics is derived from ancient Egypt. Little is known about the daily life of the Egyptians, but proof of circumcision abounds in temple reliefs. Early Egyptologists assumed that all Egyptian males were circumcised, but more recently both circumcised and uncircumcised penises have been found on the unwrapped mummies of pharaohs. Modern Egyptologists
have pondered about just whom among the Egyptians were circumcised and why". An early Masonic historian, Godfrey Higgins ("Anacalypsis", London 1836), writes, "Priests only of the Egyptians were circumcised." Candidates for priesthood, and for circumcision, were usually chosen from among puberty-age, virgin boys. Quoting modern Masonic historian, Manly P. Hall ("Freemasonry of the Ancient Egyptians", Los Angeles 1936), "In ancient Egypt learning was regarded as a high privilege and education was under the direction of a small number of individuals who were organized into bonds, pledges and vows of secrecy....(a candidate) having applied at Heliopolis, was referred to the Learned of the Institution at Memphis, and these sent him to Thebes (where) he was circumcised." Some historians have contended that the priests of Egypt were circumcised as a sacrifice, a forsaking of "sinful pleasures". However, the concept of sex as sin is not known to have been a
part of the Egyptian religion. What is known is that the circumcised penis was a symbol of fertility, as can be seen in temple reliefs throughout Egypt. According to Egyptologist, E. A. Budge ( The Gods of the Egyptians'. Dover Publications), there was a very early God of Circumcision whose job was to maintain the fertility of the Nile banks. Another early Egyptian myth contended that God circumcised himself and the blood from his penis fell and created the universe. This myth is thought by some to be the progenitor of the blood cults, in which animals were sacrificed. and the blood covenants in the modern Semitic religions. Another theory, quite unorthodox, holds that the Great Pyramid (Cheops) was not a tomb at all (it contained no artifacts, no mummies, etc.) but was a temple of initiation. The young initiates to the priesthood were, supposedly, led single file through the narrow passages receiving one initiatory degree after another and, reaching
what is now called the "Queen's Chamber", they were circumcised and then proceeded up the Grand Gallery towards the "King's Chamber" and their final degree. The circumcised priests were the guardians of immortality; symbols of fertility and life everlasting. Sacred circumcision was not unique to Egypt in the ancient world. According to Higgins the rite was performed on initiates to secret societies in "Tarnul, Chaldee, Madura and Tibet". An old text, "Asiatic Studies, Vol. II", refers to a Sacred Mystery School in earliest Tibet which started the celebration of its rites with the following herald, "Procul ! Hi 'ne procul c'ete, profani!" St. Chrystostom (Homelia 33, in Matt.) says, "When we celebrate the Mysteries, we send away those who are not initiated, and shut the doors, a deacon exclaiming, 'Far from hence, ye profane! Close the doors! Thy Mysteries are about to begin. Things Holy for the saints, hence all dogs''. Disdain for the profane (the
"dog", the uncircumcised male) has trickled down from the Mystery priests to, centuries later, their Arab adherents. Amazingly, the Moslems have traditionally used the term ''Dog'' when referring to the uninitiated; the uncircumcised. "Christian Dog!'' is a slander which has echoed across many a battlefield. Islamic fervor, almost from its beginning, aimed its sword at the offending appendage. As Islam spread its message across the then-known world, history's greatest proselytism of the circumcised penis took place and foreskins were shorn from Spain to India to the East Indies. High Islam (600-1100 AD) was a period of great culture and tolerance for the Moslem world, and that tolerance often extended to conquered Christian populations. In many countries, Christians were not forced into conversion, or circumcision, because only uncircumcised males could legally be taxed and the Arab Caliphates needed the money. The Moslem rulers of Christian Syria and
Sicily were among the most tolerant in all history only Moslem Spain forced her Christian sons to shed their foreskins. Indeed, Omar II (Umayyed Caliphate, 717- 712 AD) even argued against religious circumcision .... a late version of St. Paul. Then came the Crusades. The burly, marauding, rapine crusaders who swept down from the European wilderness were truly barbarian in the eyes of the Moslems. And, they were "dogs". Their clumsy plunder was soon met, reluctantly, with calculated cruelty...and Islam once again lost its tolerance for the uncircumcised penis. Many a handsome Knight in shining armor was dispatched back to his cold northern woods without the benefit of his "hood". The situation deteriorated until, by the time, five centuries later, British colonialism set its gaze upon Moslem ruled India, it was "As in Biblical times...", quoting historian Allen Edwardes, ("Jewel in the Lotus", Julian Press 1959), "the slashed prepuces of the Unbelievers,
heaped in mounds following a great battle, in accordance with the rigid martial code of the Moghul Empire, the warrior rose in rank according to the number of foreskins he brought in from the field." At this moment in history, British prepuce met Sword of Islam. As the mighty British Empire expanded and Mother England sent forth soldiers, adventurers and government clerks, more and more of her Christian sons returned home with Islamized penises. Unfortunately, many did not return but instead bled to death as a result of their foreskin amputation. Phimosis, the condition of a tight or unretractable prepuce, seemingly had a high incidence among the English, making cavalier circumcisions by Moslem swordsmen risky, and as far back as 1661, the Old London Company realized that her many phimosed employees were in mortal danger. Knowing it was impossible to protect British foreskins from zealot Moghuls, the British governor of Madras proclaimed that all
applicants to the Company be "bodily examined" and if a cadet could not "strip his yard" the company surgeon was obliged to "clip ye skin entire". Thus, in 1661, the first circumcision of European Christians by European Christians was commenced, giving impetus to three hundred years of routine circumcision in the English speaking world. The Old London Company records still exist giving explicit details about who among her illustrious empire builders were "clipcocks" and who were "pillcocks" (or, peelcocks; uncircumcised). These terms gave rise to generations of English schoolboy humor and playful contention, not to mention curiosity, between possessors or the two styles of "cocks". For many generations the "clipcocks", in the minority, suffered great indignation. Robert Clive, the hero in the British takeover of India, was angered when his phimosed penis was circumcised by the company surgeon; "By God, had I known I was to come out here to be clipped
I'd have forsaken pork and procured me a scullcap!" When taunted by the pillcock cadets in his own company Clive "...did menace ye offending cadets with his pen-knife, asking who should be the first in ye loss of his precious skin.'' By the early nineteenth century, however, the clipcock became fashion among the British aristocracy, who wore it as a badge of honor--proof of serving Throne and Empire in foreign service.