Forced circumcision is the circumcision of men and boys against their will.Glass (2013). In a biblical context, the term is used especially in relation to Paul the Apostle and his polemics against the circumcision controversy in early Christianity.See, e.g., Dunn, Paul and the Mosaic Law, p. 265; Tomson, "Transformations of Post-70 Judaism," p. 120. Forced circumcisions have occurred in a wide range of situations, most notably in the forced conversion of gentiles to Judaism, the compulsory conversion of non-Muslims to Islam"Although the Qur'an speaks against forced conversion, such conversions of Christians and Jews took place under Muslim rule until the early decades of the twentieth century." Lerner, Religion, Secular Beliefs and Human Rights, p. 142. and the forced circumcision of Teso, Turkana and Luo men in Kenya, as well as the abduction of South African teenage boys to so-called circumcision schools ("bush schools").On occurrences of forced circumcision in Kenya, see Glazier, Land and the Uses of Traditions, p. 25; Wamwere, I Refuse to Die, p. 149, passim; Karimi and Ochieng, The Kenyatta Succession, p. 13; Rutten and Owuor, "Weapons of mass destruction"; Kagwanja, "Courting genocide." Regarding the situation in South Africa, see Ndangam, Lifting the Cloak, pp. 211-213; Meintjies, Manhood at a Price; Mayatula and Mavundla, "A review on male circumcision procedures"; Crowly and Kesner, "Ritual Circumcision." In South Africa, custom allows uncircumcised Xhosa-speaking men past the age of circumcision (i.e., 25 years or older) to be overpowered by other men and forcibly circumcised.Funani, Circumcision among the Ama-Xhosa, p. v.
History and contemporary forced circumcision Hasmonean Kingdom (140 BCE–37 BCE)
1 Maccabees relates the story of how Mattathias (ca. 166 BC) forcibly circumcised the sons of Jewish parents who had abandoned the rite."And Mattathias and his friends went around and tore down the altars; they forcibly circumcised all the uncircumcised boys that they found within the borders of Israel " (1 Macc. 2:45-46, New Revised Standard Version). Forced circumcision of Gentiles by Jews is attested from the second century BC onwards. In 125 BC John Hyrcanus conquered Edom, which the Romans called Idumea; and the Idumeans were forcibly converted to Judaism, by threat of exile or death, depending on the source.Flavius Josephus Antiquities 13.257–258Aristobulus As reported by Josephus, circumcision was required of the Idumeans:
Scholars disagree on the interpretation of the sources. For example, Steven Weitzman believes the Idumeans were forcibly circumcised for political, not religious, reasons.Weitzman, "Forced Circumcision." According to Shaye J. D. Cohen, "Ptolemy's claim, that the Idumaeans were compelled to be circumcised and to adopt Jewish ways, is a simplified account of what these urban Idumaeans experienced."Cohen, "Religion, Ethnicity, and Hellenism," p. 216 During the short reign of Hyrcanus' eldest son, Aristobulus I (104–103 BC), the Hasmoneans gained control of Galilee. In this case, too, sources indicate that the residents were subjected to forced circumcision.See, e.g., Fiensy, New Testament Introduction, p. 19. Archaeological evidence suggests that, during this period, Gentiles fled from Galilee to avoid being forcibly circumcised.Charlesworth, "Why Evaluate Twenty-five Years," pp. 10-11. Recently, Isaac Soon has argued that 1 Macc 2:46 does not refer to circumcision "by force" but that Mattathias circumcised "in strength". He argues that Mattathias did not forcibly circumcise, but instead re-established circumcision among Jewish inhabitants of Judea "in strength".
Roman Empire
Greeks and Romans regarded circumcision as a mutilation of the male genitalia, but the practice is little discussed in Roman literary sources until the second century of the Christian era.Juvenal 14.103–104; Tacitus, Historia 5.5.1–2; Martial 7.30.5, 7.35.3–4, 7.82.5–6, 11.94; Margaret Williams, "Jews and Jewish Communities in the Roman Empire," in Experiencing Rome: Culture, Identity and Power in the Roman Empire (Routledge, 2000), p. 325; Mary Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule: From Pompey to Diocletian (Brill, 1976), p. 431; Jack N. Lightstone, "Roman Diaspora Religion," in A Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007), p. 362. There was a circumcision controversy in Early Christianity but this was resolved at the Council of Jerusalem c.50 which made it clear that circumcision of gentile converts to Christianity was not required.Acts 15: 5-21 Josephus (who changed his allegiance from the Jews to the Roman Flavians) reports that two Roman officers who had taken refuge with Galileans during the war with Rome (early 67 AD) were put under pressure to convert to Judaism. Josephus, declaring that "every one should worship God in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience," claims to have saved the two Gentiles from forced circumcision.Josephus, Life 23 §113; see also Goodman, "Galilean Judaism," p. 602; Donaldson, Paul and the Gentiles, p. 323. After the First Roman-Jewish War, a head tax, the Fiscus Judaicus, was levied against all Jews. According to Suetonius, Domitian (c.90) also applied this tax to those who were circumcised, even if they claimed they were not Jews. Titus Flavius Clemens was put to death in 95 for adopting Jewish customs. In 96 Nerva relaxed the Jewish tax as applying only to those who professed to be Jews. Sometime between 128 and 132 AD, the emperor Hadrian seems to have temporarily banned circumcision, on pain of death.Peter Schäfer, The History of the Jews in the Greco-Roman World (Routledge, 1983, 2003), p. 150, and Judeophobia: Attitudes toward Jews in the Ancient World (Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 103, pointing out this depends on a single note on the ban as a cause for the Bar Kokhba revolt in the Historia Augusta, the historical credibility of which is often cast in doubt. Cassius Dio mentions nothing about circumcision in his account of the revolt. See also Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule, pp. 430–431, who thinks the ban makes more sense as a punitive measure after the revolt, since it "ran completely counter to the long established Roman policy of guaranteeing Jewish religious liberty." Antoninus Pius exempted Jews from the ban,Schäfer, The History of the Jews, p. 150; Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule, p. 467. as well as Egyptian priests,Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule, p. 470. and Origen (d. ca. 253) says that in his time only Jews were permitted to practice circumcision.Schäfer, Judeophobia, p. 103. Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule, p. 469, takes Origen as meaning that circumcision was "a solely Jewish rite" by his time. Legislation under Constantine, the first Christian emperor, freed any slave who was subjected to circumcision; in the year 339, circumcising a slave became punishable by death.Peter Schäfer, The History of the Jews, p. 185.
Although Greco-Roman writers view circumcision as an identifying characteristic of Jews, they believed the practice to have originated in Egypt,Several Greco-Roman writers, such as Strabo, regarded the Jews as of Egyptian descent, in what was apparently their understanding of the Exodus: Schäfer, Judeophobia, pp. 93–94. and recorded it among peoples they identified as Arab, Syrian, Phoenician, Colchian, and Ethiopian; circumcision was a marker of "the Other".Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule, p. 430; Schäfer, Judeophobia, pp. 93–94. Diaspora Jews might circumcise their male slaves as well as adult male converts and Jewish male infants.Lightstone, "Roman Diaspora Judaism," p. 363. According to Catherine Hezser, it is an open question whether Jews of late antiquity refrained from forcibly circumcising their Gentile slaves and whether Romans avoided selling their slaves to Jews in reaction to the prohibition.Hezser, Jewish Slavery in Antiquity, p. 42; see also Hezser, "Slaves and Slavery." The Mishnah (compiled about 200 AD) is silent on this point, whereas the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael (written at the end of the fourth century or later) suggests that Jews might indeed possess uncircumcised slaves.Schorsch, Jews and Blacks, p. 378, n. 24.
Asia and North Africa Forced conversions, involving forced circumcision, are echoed in a vast body of scholarly literature spanning the entire history of Islam.See, e.g., Lerner, Religion, Secular Beliefs, and Human Rights, p. 142; Ye'or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity, pp. 88-91; Stark, God's Battalions, p. 28; Clarence-Smith, Islam, p. 39, passim; Misra, Identity and Religion, p. 91, passim. Scholars conclude that, during the Islamic conquest of the Middle East and North Africa, forced conversion to Islam through violence or threat of violence did not play a key role. However, taxes and regulations requiring the holders of prestigious positions to become Muslims have been regarded as a form of forced conversion.Firestone, An Introduction to Islam, p. 58; see also Misra, Identity and Religion, p. 172.
South Asia
In the aftermath of the 1780 Battle of Pollilur, roughly 200 British prisoners of war were imprisoned by Hyder Ali in the fortress of Seringapatnam. Many of the prisoners of war were forcibly circumcised in Mysorean captivity.Darby, A Surgical Temptation, pp. 32-33; see also Oddy, Religion in South Asia, p. 42, passim. Cromwell Massey, who kept a secret diary during his captivity, wrote: "I lost with the foreskin of my yard all those benefits of a Christian and Englishman which were and ever shall be my greatest glory."Colley, Captives, p. 288. Adolescent captives were, in addition to being circumcised, made to wear female clothes. James Bristow, a teenage artilleryman, revenged himself by circumcising dogs, believing that this would harm the religious feelings of the Muslim warders. The prospect of punishment did not deter him, because "compelling us to undergo an abhorred operation [was] so base and barbarous an act of aggression, that it was impossible to reflect on it with temper."Lawrence, Captives of Tipu, p. 35. James Scurry, also a prisoner of war, confirms in his book, The Captivity, Sufferings, and Escape of James Scurry (1824), that British POWs, Mangalorean Catholics, and other prisoners were forcibly circumcised. In 1784, when Tipu returned from Mangalore, he brought back tens of thousands of Mangalorean Catholics from Kanara and subjected them to forced circumcision.See, e.g., Naravane, Battles, p. 175.
According to Kativa Daiya, during the 1947 partition of India "[f]orced circumcision, shaving facial and head hair (for Sikh men), and shaving off the Hindu Brahmin's traditional, short, plaited hair (on an otherwise bald head) were routine Muslim conversion tactics for men and boys."Daiya, Violent Belongings, pp. 69-70. Asia News reported in 2004 that the Justice and Peace Commission of Lahor spoke out against young non-Muslim men in Pakistan being converted and circumcised against their will. In 2005, the Gulf Times discussed a case of forced circumcision of Nepalese boys in Mumbai in the context of sex trade in large Indian cities.
Iraq Iraqi Mandaeans, residing almost exclusively in Baghdad and Basra, do not circumcise.See, e.g., Lupieri, The Mandaeans. However, their religious sensitivity on this issue has not prevented hostile rulers from subjecting Mandaean men and boys to forced circumcision.Buckley, The Great Stem of Souls, pp. 149-150. Mandaean communities, especially after the invasion of Iraq, have been subject to "murder, kidnapping, rape, forced conversion, forced circumcision and destruction of religious property."Nickerson et al., "The impact of fear"; see also Nickerson et al., "Fear of Cultural Extinction."
In Iraq in 2003, shortly after the fall of the Saddam regime, the 35 families who made up the Mandean community in Falluja were ordered at gunpoint to adopt Islam; the men were forcibly circumcised.