“I hear that girls suffer not just physically but psychologically,” the 31-year-old Mohammed said. “But I am afraid. I don’t want my daughters to have uncontrollable demands for sex.”

Such doubts are significant. With vigorous grass-roots campaigns and the passage of tough laws against circumcision, Egypt seems to be making a dent in this deeply ingrained practice, thousands of years old. The number of young girls circumcised is now steadily declining in a country where an estimated 96 percent of married Egyptian women have had their genitals cut.