Al-Risala (English), May-June 2000

without such dedication. How, then, can it come in the field of divine service, for there is no task more difficult, and more beset by obstacles—both within and without—than that of carrying the flame of true faith in God before the world. □ Can Circumcision Curb Aids? N ew evidence suggests that circumcision of all male babies could help to halt the global Aids epidemic. With 50m living cases and more than 16m deaths, the disease is now the worst human health disaster since the Black Death. The thesis—laid out in a scientific paper to be published soon—seems likely to create huge controversy as it represents a complete change in accepted ideas about the transmission of Aids. One of the paper’s authors, Roger Short, professor of obstetrics at Melbourne University and a respected scientist with long experience of Aids-ravaged areas, has been told he cannot address the subject at a forthcoming international conference. Short and his co-author, Dr. Robert Szabo, are convinced that a high level of receptors—sites to which invading organisms attach themselves—on the inside of the foreskin make it responsible for transmission. Short and Szabo noted a sharp difference in the prevalence of HIV infection in the ‘Aids belt’ countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In some areas the infection rates are as high as 25 per cent, in others as low as 1 per cent. The lower infection rates were clearly associated with the practice of male circumcision. “The