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Religious male circumcision generally occurs shortly after birth, during childhood or around puberty as part of a rite of passage. Circumcision is most prevalent in the religions of Judaism and Islam. Circumcision is common in some predominantly Christian countries such as the United States, the Philippines, South Korea, Ethiopia, and Kenya, and is also widely practiced among Christians from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, and North Africa. Circumcision is less common in Europe, East Asia and Latin America. It is practiced by the Muslim population in India and amongst some Indian Christians. Hodges argues that in Ancient Greece the foreskin was valued and that Greek and Roman attempts to abolish ritual circumcision were prompted by humanitarian concerns.〔 〕 Male circumcision practised as a religious rite is found in texts of the Hebrew Bible, as part of the Abrahamic covenant, such as in , and is therefore practised by Jews, Muslims, and a significant number of Christians, who constitute the Abrahamic religions. Some rabbinical sources indicate that even before the covenant of Abraham, the aposthia of Shem may have been an inspiration for circumcision; though the aposthia of Shem is not specifically mentioned in the Genesis text.〔http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13541-shem〕〔http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3494220/〕 ==African cultures== In West Africa, infant circumcision had religious significance as a rite of passage or otherwise in the past; today in some non-Muslim Nigerian societies it is medicalised and is simply a cultural norm.〔Ajuwon et al., "Indigenous surgical practices in rural southwestern Nigeria: Implications for disease," Health Educ. Res..1995; 10: 379-384 Health Educ. Res..1995; 10: 379-384. Retrieved 3 October 2006〕 In many West African traditional societies circumcision has become medicalised and is simply performed in infancy without ado or any particular conscious cultural significance . Among the Urhobo of southern Nigeria it is symbolic of a boy entering into manhood. The ritual expression, ''Omo te Oshare'' ("the boy is now man"), constitutes a rite of passage from one age set to another.〔 〕 In East Africa, specifically in Kenya among various so-classified Bantu and Nilotic peoples, such as the Maragoli and Idakho of the Luhya super-ethnic group, the Kikuyu, Kalenjin and Maasai, circumcision is a rite of passage observed collectively by a number of boys every few years, and boys circumcised at the same time are taken to be members of a single age set.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 Masai of Kenya ) 〕 Authority derives from the age-group and the age-set. Prior to circumcision a natural leader or Olaiguenani is selected; he leads his age-group through a series of rituals until old age, sharing responsibility with a select few, of whom the ritual expert (Oloiboni) is the ultimate authority. Masai youths are not circumcised until they are mature, and a new age-set is initiated together at regular intervals of twelve to fifteen years. The young warriors (Il-Murran) remain initiates for some time, using blunt arrows to hunt small birds which are stuffed and tied to a frame to form a head-dress. Traditionally, among the Luhya, boys of certain age-sets, typically between 8 and 18 years of age would, under the leadership of specific men engage in various rites leading up to the day of circumcision. After circumcision, they would live apart from the rest of society for a certain number of days. Not even their mothers nor sisters would be allowed to see them. The Xhosa Tribe from the Eastern Cape in South Africa has a circumcision ritual. The ceremony is part of a transition to manhood. It is called the Abakwetha - "A Group Learning". A group of normally five aged between 16-20 go off for three months and live in a special hut (sutu). The circumcision is the climax of the ritual. Nelson Mandela describes his experiences undergoing this ritual in his biography - "The Long Walk to Freedom".〔(【引用サイトリンク】 Eastern Cape - The Abakwetha Circumcision Ceremony - Xhosa ) 〕〔 〕 Traditional circumcisions are often performed in unsterile conditions where no anesthetic is administered; improper treatment of the wound can lead to Sepsis and dehydration, which has in the past lead to initiate deaths. New non-surgical technologies, like Prepex, have been introduced to decrease the number of deaths and injuries caused by circumcision practices during initiation ceremonies (and those caused during circumcision for HIV prevention). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Religious male circumcision」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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