page_title: Circumcision
section_title: Middle East, Africa and Europe
hierarchical_section_title: Circumcision / History / Middle East, Africa and Europe
caption_attribution_description: The Surname-i Vehbi is an illustrated account of the circumcision ceremony of Sultan Ahmed III's three sons. The festival took place in 1720 and lasted for fifteen days and nights. Its opulence and splendor were documented in the Surname, a book commissioned for the occasion. It is named after its author, the court poet Seyyd Hüseyin Vehbi. The book is illustrated with 137 miniatures by Abdülcelil Levni Çelebi, the court painter, and his apprentices.
context_page_description: Circumcision is the removal of the foreskin from the human penis. In the most common procedure, the foreskin is opened, adhesions are removed, and the foreskin is separated from the glans. After that, a circumcision device may be placed, and then the foreskin is cut off. Topical or locally injected anesthesia is used to reduce pain and physiologic stress. The procedure is most often an elective surgery performed on babies and children for religious or cultural reasons. Medically, circumcision is a treatment option for problematic cases of phimosis and balanoposthitis that do not resolve with other treatments, and for chronic urinary tract infections. It is contraindicated in cases of certain genital structure abnormalities or poor general health.
  The positions of the world's major medical organizations range from a belief that elective circumcision of babies and children carries significant risks and offers no medical benefits to a belief that the procedure has a modest health benefit that outweighs small risks. No major medical organization recommends circumcising all males, and no major medical organization recommends banning the procedure.
context_section_description: Evidence suggests that circumcision was practiced in the Middle East by the 4th millennium BCE, when the Sumerians and the Semites moved into the area that is modern-day Iraq from the North and West.  The earliest historical record of circumcision comes from Egypt, in the form of an image of the circumcision of an adult carved into the tomb of Ankh-Mahor at Saqqara, dating to about 2400–2300 BCE.  Circumcision was done by the Egyptians possibly for hygienic reasons, but also was part of their obsession with purity and was associated with spiritual and intellectual development.  No well-accepted theory explains the significance of circumcision to the Egyptians, but it appears to have been endowed with great honor and importance as a rite of passage into adulthood, performed in a public ceremony emphasizing the continuation of family generations and fertility.  It may have been a mark of distinction for the elite:  the Egyptian Book of the Dead describes the sun god Ra as having circumcised himself.
  Though secular scholars consider the story to be literary and not historical, circumcision features prominently in the Hebrew Bible. The narrative in Genesis chapter 17 describes the circumcision of Abraham and his relatives and slaves. In the same chapter, Abraham's descendants are commanded to circumcise their sons on the eighth day of life as part of a covenant with God.
  In addition to proposing that circumcision was taken up by the Israelites purely as a religious mandate, scholars have suggested that Judaism's patriarchs and their followers adopted circumcision to make penile hygiene easier in hot, sandy climates; as a rite of passage into adulthood; or as a form of blood sacrifice.
  Alexander the Great conquered the Middle East in the 4th century BCE, and in the following centuries ancient Greek cultures and values came to the Middle East. The Greeks abhorred circumcision, making life for circumcised Jews living among the Greeks (and later the Romans) very difficult. Antiochus Epiphanes outlawed circumcision, as did Hadrian, which helped cause the Bar Kokhba revolt.  During this period in history, Jewish circumcision called for the removal of only a part of the prepuce, and some Hellenized Jews attempted to look uncircumcised by stretching the extant parts of their foreskins. This was considered by the Jewish leaders to be a serious problem, and during the 2nd century CE they changed the requirements of Jewish circumcision to call for the complete removal of the foreskin, emphasizing the Jewish view of circumcision as intended to be not just the fulfillment of a Biblical commandment but also an essential and permanent mark of membership in a people.
  A narrative in the Christian Gospel of Luke makes a brief mention of the circumcision of Jesus, but the subject of physical circumcision itself is not part of the received teachings of Jesus. Paul the Apostle reinterpreted circumcision as a spiritual concept, arguing the physical one to be unnecessary for Gentile converts to Christianity.  The teaching that physical circumcision was unnecessary for membership in a divine covenant was instrumental in the separation of Christianity from Judaism.  Although it is not explicitly mentioned in the Quran (early 7th century CE), circumcision is considered essential to Islam, and it is nearly universally performed among Muslims.  The practice of circumcision spread across the Middle East, North Africa, and Southern Europe with Islam.
  Genghis Khan and the following Yuan Emperors in China forbade Islamic practices such as halal butchering and circumcision. This led Chinese Muslims to eventually take an active part in rebelling against the Mongols and installing the Ming Dynasty.
  The practice of circumcision is thought to have been brought to the Bantu-speaking tribes of Africa by either the Jews after one of their many expulsions from European countries, or by Muslim Moors escaping after the 1492 reconquest of Spain. In the second half of the 1st millennium CE, inhabitants from the North East of Africa moved south and encountered groups fr
caption: Köçeks dancing at the circumcision celebration of Sultan Ahmed III's sons (1720); miniature from the Surname-i Vehbi, Topkapı Palace, Istanbul
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