Becoming a Muslim Virgin…Again

June 11, 2008

By ELAINE SCIOLINO and SOUAD MEKHENNET

[“Even if the woman was no longer a virgin, he had no right to expose her honor. This is not what Islam teaches. It teaches forgiveness.”]

– Abdelkibir Errami, Vice President of Islamic Center of Roubaix

PARIS — The operation in the private clinic off the Champs-Élysées involved one semicircular cut, 10 dissolving stitches and a discounted fee of $2,900.

But for the patient, a 23-year-old French student of Moroccan descent from Montpellier, the 30-minute procedure represented the key to a new life: the illusion of virginity.