Most Islamists prefer to avoid the subject of slavery, which is explicitly permitted in the Koran, but Salafis endorse this practice.
Ali Al-Ahmed of the dissident Saudi Information Agency reports today that a prominent Saudi religious authority recently called for slavery to be re-legalized in the kingdom. Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan, the author of a religious textbook (At-Tawhid, "Monotheism") widely used to teach Saudi high school students as well as their counterparts abroad studying in Saudi schools (including those in the West), announced in a recent lecture that "Slavery is a part of Islam. Slavery is part of jihad, and jihad will remain as long there is Islam." He argued against the idea that slavery had ever been abolished, insulting those who espouse this view as "ignorant, not scholars. They are merely writers. Whoever says such things is an infidel."
Al-Fawzan is no maverick. He is:
- A member of the Senior Council of Clerics, Saudi Arabia's highest religious body;
- A member of the Council of Religious Edicts and Research;
- Imam of the Prince Mitaeb Mosque in Riyadh; and
- Professor at Imam Mohamed Bin Saud Islamic University, the main Wahhabi center of learning.
That such a viewpoint can be asserted by a card-carrying member of the Saudi religious establishment offers a tragic commentary on the state of Islamic discourse today. (November 7, 2003)
May 18, 2010 update: Endorsements of the use of slaves as soldiers can be found at a weblog entry started today, "Praising Military Slavery."
Abu Ishaq al-Huwaini (also spelled Abo Ishaq Alheweny) dreams of buying kafir slave girls.
May 31, 2011 update: An Egyptian sheikh, Abu Ishaq al-Huwaini (also spelled Abo Ishaq Alheweny) wants to apply the Shar'i code of spoils of war, including the taking of slaves. Raymond Ibrahim explains in "Raped and Ransacked in the Muslim World":
According to Huwaini, after Muslims invade and conquer a non-Muslim nation—in the course of waging an offensive jihad—the properties and persons of those infidels who refuse to convert or pay jizya and live as subjugated dhimmis, are to be seized as ghanima or "spoils of war." ... Huwaini said that infidel captives, the "spoils of war," are to be distributed among the Muslim combatants (i.e., jihadists) and taken to "the slave market, where slave-girls and concubines are sold."
He referred to these latter by their dehumanizing name in the Koran, ma malakat aymanukum—"what your right hands possess"—in this context, sex-slaves: "You go to the market and buy her, and she becomes like your legal mate—though without a contract, a guardian, or any of that stuff—and this is agreed upon by the ulema." "In other words," Huwaini concluded, "when I want a sex-slave, I go to the market and pick whichever female I desire and buy her."
Comment: When asked about the essence of the Shari'a, I mention three key elements: Muslim superiority over non-Muslims, male superiority over females, and the legitimacy of violence to extend Islam's sway. Huwaini's "I go to the market and pick whichever female I desire and buy her" vividly and memorably illustrates all three elements. June 11, 2011 update: The website TranslatingJihad.com provides a condensed transcript of this statement at "Video: Shaykh al-Huwayni: 'When I want a sex slave, I just go to the market and choose the woman I like and purchase her'."
June 6, 2011 update: Another endorsement of sex slavery, this time from a female. Raymond Ibrahim tells the story of Salwa al-Mutairi, a Kuwaiti former parliamentary candidate, who seeks to "revive the institution of sex-slavery." She
begins by insisting that "it's of course true" that "the prophet of Islam legitimized sex-slavery." She recounts how when she was in Mecca, Islam's holiest city, she asked various sheikhs and muftis (learned, authoritative Muslims) about the legality of sex-slavery according to Sharia: they all confirmed it to be perfectly legal; Kuwaiti ulema further pointed out that extra "virile" men—Western synonymous include "sex-crazed," "lecherous," "perverted"—would do well to purchase sex-slaves to sate their appetites without sinning.
Ibrahim quotes a portion of her taped speech on rules governing sex-slaves who must be at least 15 years-old:
A Muslim state must [first] attack a Christian state—sorry, I mean any non-Muslim state—and they [the women, the future sex-slaves] must be captives of the raid. Is this forbidden? Not at all; according to Islam, sex slaves are not at all forbidden. Quite the contrary, the rules regulating sex-slaves differ from those for free women [i.e., Muslim women]: the latter's body must be covered entirely, except for her face and hands, whereas the sex-slave is kept naked from the bellybutton on up—she is different from the free woman; the free woman has to be married properly to her husband, but the sex-slave—he just buys her and that's that.
Mutairi then gives an example from the war in Chechnya: "Surely there are female Russian captives. So go and buy those and sell them here in Kuwait; better that than have our men engage in forbidden sexual relations. I don't see any problem in this, no problem at all." She invokes Harun ar-Rashid, the Abbasid caliph, as an exemplar of male virtue: "The greatest example we have is Harun al-Rashid: when he died, he had 2,000 sex slaves—so it's okay, nothing wrong with it." Mutairi concludes with a supplication to God: "Oh I truly wish this for Kuwait, Allah willing—Oh Lord, Lord, you are bountiful." June 22, 2011 update: More on this subject can be found here.
July 5, 2012 update: Raymond Ibrahim returns to this topic at "Egypt's Sex-Slave Marriage," where he tells about the country's "first sex-slave marriage" having been contracted within days after the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi becoming president. It involves a man, one Abd al-Rauf Awn, publicly "marrying" his "slave." See Ibrahim's piece for the details.
Nov. 27, 2013 update: Raymond Ibrahim brings more news on an Islamist call for slavery: A study on fatwas of the Muslim Brotherhood during its year in power, The Misguided Fatwas of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis, prepared by Sayed Zayed of the Fatwa Committee of Al-Azhar, reports ona fatwa that "demanded the enactment of a law allowing divorced women to own slaves." The goal, presumably, was to help divorcées who no longer have husbands to support them.
Oct. 14, 2014 update: A British Islamist, Mizanur Rahman (also known as Abu Baraa), in the course of defending ISIS declared that "Now that we have the Caliphate, we can have slavegirls."
Oct. 16, 2014 update: For more on this topic, see my "ISIS Justifies Its Yazidi Slaves," today in National Review Online.
Feb. 7, 2017 update: Jonathan Brown, who rejoices in the dual titles of Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization in the School of Foreign Service and Director of the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding, both at Georgetown University, did not quite call for a return of slavery but he did justify the practice among Muslims. A student, Umar Lee, tells about the talk (after Andrew E. Harrod was thrown out when attempting to report on it for Campus Watch):
While the lecture was supposed to be about slavery in Islam Brown spent the majority of the lecture talking about slavery in the United States, the United Kingdom and China. When discussing slavery in these societies Brown painted slavery as brutal and violent (which it certainly was). When the conversation would briefly flip to historic slavery in the Arab and Turkish world, slavery was described by Brown in glowing terms. Indeed, according to Brown, slaves in the Muslim World lived a pretty good life. ...
Brown constructs a world where the wrongs of the West excuse any wrongs (if he believes there are any) in the Muslim World. "Slavery wasn't racialized" in Muslim societies, Brown stated. ... Brown described slavery in the Muslim World as kinder and gentler. ... "Slaves were protected by shariah (Islamic Law)" ... "It's not immoral for one human to own another human" Brown stated in his clearest defense of slavery."
For good measure, Brown added that "Consent isn't necessary for lawful sex" and went on to elaborate, Lee writes, that "consent wasn't necessary to moral and ethical sex and that the morality of sex is dependent on the lawfulness of the sex-partner and not consent."
Comments: (1) That an American professor can state in Washington, D.C. in 2017 that "It's not immoral for one human to own another human" is mind-boggling. (2) One wonders if the poohbahs at Georgetown will even rap his knuckles for this lecture. (3) It's the more ironic given Georgetown University's convulsions in recent months over the legacy of American slavery. Feb. 17, 2017 update: A Washington Post article, "Georgetown professor under fire for lecture about slavery and Islam," provides many more quotes, plus Brown's post-facto equivocations. Aug. 8, 2019 update: Doubling down, Brown has published a book on Slavery and Islam. One quote: "Not everything that we label 'slavery' in history was always wrong in every time and place."
Nov. 7, 2017 update: A Kuwaiti imam, Saalim Bin Sa'd At-Taweel, states that slavery is part of Islam that Muslims should not deny. Indeed, slavery is "one of the virtues of Islam" because it provides infidels with an opportunity to become Muslims and avoid hell.
One of the virtues of Islam is that the women and children [of the enemy] are not killed. They are taken as slaves, and they are treated well. They are called upon to convert to Islam.
How many Muslim ulema were white slaves, who were put to use by Allah as Islamic scholars. If they had died as infidels, they would have been condemned to eternal Hellfire. Instead, they were taken captive.
The Prophet Muhammad took a Jewish woman and married her, and she became the Mother of the Believers. Imagine that! She had been Jewish before. Had she died believing in her distorted Judaism, she would have gone to Hell. Instead, she was taken captive, and she was found to be the most suitable woman for the Prophet Muhammad. ...
So, this is one of the virtues of Islam, but some people are trying to shrug it off, and say: "There is no slavery in Islam." How can you say this? It is in the Qur'an.
Taweel has visited the United States and United Kingdom several times, where he lectured at mosques and conferences.
Sep. 9, 2020 update: Alberto M. Fernandez reviews the defense of slavery sentiments by an Islamist, Muhammad Shaaban Ayyub, writing for Al Jazeera at "The Slave Girls Of Al-Jazeera."
 Al Jazeera presents "A Slave Girl Defeats the Scholars of Al-Andalus with her Scientific Questions and Another Expounds on the Narrative of Imam Malik... the Cultural Contribution of Slaves to Islamic Civilization."' |
