The Sharing Group Discussion on the Rape of Female Slaves

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

The following was posted, on The Sharing Group, by Brother Sri Nahar, on the 02^nd June 2016: “Someone asked me about Surah an-Nisa’:24, and charged that the Qur’an teaches sex slavery.  How am I to respond to this?” 

Brother Terence Helikaon Nunis: How would you like a response?  In detail? 

Brother Sri Nahar: Preferably, yes. Including citations from scholarly sources. 

Brother Terence Helikaon Nunis: The verse in question is this: 

سُوۡرَةُ النِّسَاء

۞ وَٱلۡمُحۡصَنَـٰتُ مِنَ ٱلنِّسَآءِ إِلَّا مَا مَلَكَتۡ أَيۡمَـٰنُڪُمۡ‌ۖ … (٢٤) 

Also (prohibited are) women already married, except those whom your right hands possess ... (Surah an-Nisa’:24) 

The words that are translated into English in that verse as “those whom your right hands possess” is the Arabic phrase “maa malakat aymanukum,” and in the classical Arabic it is a polite term for slaves captured in war.  The above verse is forbidding men to have an intimate relationship with married women, unless those women are war captives.  Here, men are seemingly given the permission to have sex with slave-women, whether married or unmarried. 

The first recipients of the Message of Islam had a custom of taking women captives of war.  Islam did not invent this practice.  This custom of having sexual relations with slave girls was practised by virtually every culture at the time.  The wars in the pre-Islamic Arabian Peninsula were on a tribal basis, and when the men were killed their women were taken and undoubtedly were treated quite inhumanely. 

The Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) was Sent to abolish all of that which was inhumane and degrading.  He could have taken one of two paths.  He could have tried to abolish it at once or to do the same gradually with wisdom.  The second was preferred because such a deeply ingrained practice could not be abolished at once.  Thousands of women would have been left to provide for themselves, and the likelihood of Arab men taking “damaged goods” as their wives was unlikely. 

Once the hearts of his followers had reached the level of sublime morality, then steps were taken via Revelations and prophetic example to discourage the practice of concubinage so much so that within 100 years of the death of the Prophet (s.a.w.), it had been eradicated from the Arab Peninsula.  We consider what the condition of such women would have been had the institution of slavery not been in place in a time before homeless shelters, women’s rights movements and suffrage. 

Islam laid down rules which would eventually lead to eradicating the practice.  We cannot deny that Muslims were allowed to have intercourse with slave women taken as captives of wars.  In so doing, however, the woman would automatically become free if she became pregnant.  Furthermore, her child would also become free. 

The intimate physical relation, if any, had to be consensual.  Forcing somebody into such a situation is against the very spirit of Islam.  The Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) ordered the Muslims to treat their war-captives fairly and to treat them how they themselves would wish to be treated:.

Sayyidina Abu Dzarr Jundab ibn Junadah al-Ghifari (r.a.) narrated that the Prophet (s.a.w.) said, “Feed those of your slaves who please you from what you eat and clothe them with what you clothe yourselves, but sell those who do not please you and do not punish Allah’s (s.w.t.) creatures.”  This is recorded in Sunan Abu Dawud.  The hadits clearly tells us that if a slave woman does not please her master; refuse to work for him, or allow him to lay down with her, the master is supposed to either bear patiently with her, or sell her.  If not; he would be in the wrong; he may force her into such an action and the hadits terms such an act as “punishing Allah’s (s.w.t.) creatures,” rape. 

Sayyidina Salamah ibn al-Muhabbaq (r.a.) narrated that the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w.) made a decision about a man who had intercourse with his wife’s slave-girl as follows: “If he forced her, she is free, and he shall give her mistress a slave-girl similar to her; if she asked him to have intercourse voluntarily, she will belong to him, and he shall give her mistress a slave-girl similar to her.”  This is recorded in Sunan Abu Dawud.  Shaykh Taqi’ ad-Din Ahmad ibn ‘Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyyah (r.a.) authenticated it in his Majmu’a al-Fatawa saying, “Some have doubted this hadits for its chain but it is hasan.”  This hadits explicitly states that it is unlawful to force a slave woman into physical relations. 

Forced relationship is forbidden and it makes her free.  It is also recorded in Swahih Muslim that the Prophet (s.a.w.) was narrated to have said, “He who slaps his slave or beats him, the expiation for it is that he should set him free.”  When slapping the slave is such a heinous crime, how can one think that Islam would allow the raping of slave women? 

There is also a hadits in Sunan Abu Dawud where a man forced his slave-girl into prostitution, whereupon Allah (s.w.t.) Sent Down a Revelation of the Qur’an which Stated: 

سُوۡرَةُ النُّور

… وَلَا تُكۡرِهُواْ فَتَيَـٰتِكُمۡ عَلَى ٱلۡبِغَآءِ إِنۡ أَرَدۡنَ تَحَصُّنً۬ا لِّتَبۡتَغُواْ عَرَضَ ٱلۡحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنۡيَا‌ۚ وَمَن يُكۡرِههُّنَّ فَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ مِنۢ بَعۡدِ إِكۡرَٲهِهِنَّ غَفُورٌ۬ رَّحِيمٌ۬ (٣٣) 

… But force not your maids to prostitution when they desire chastity, in order that you may make a gain in the goods of this life.  But if anyone compels them, yet after such compulsion, is Allah Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful (to them). (Surah an-Nur:33) 

Based on these teachings, the companions of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.), particularly his closest companions, considered the practice makruh, and this is derived from the fact that Sayyidina Abu Hafsw ‘Umar ibn al-Khaththab al-Faruq (r.a.) ordered the Muslims to send back female captives of war saying, “I would not like the taking of concubines to become a custom among the Arabs.”  This is related in al-Khilafah wa al-Khulafah ar-Rashidun. 

This shows that by the time of Sayyidina ‘Umar’s (r.a.) rule, which began within three years of the death of the Prophet (s.a.w.), it was already a custom which was non-existent in Arabia due to the stringent regulations and emphatic teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.).  It had been a practice only in Zaman Jahiliyyah.  By the time of Sayyidina ‘Umar’s (r.a.) caliphate, the practice had been eradicated.  The second thing we learn is that the swahabah understood the practice to be something which was heavily frowned upon in Islam to such an extent that the caliph had the right to forbid it outright. 

From the Qur’an and ahadits, as well as the understanding of the early Muslims, the early schools of law actually stipulated punishments for men who raped female slaves.  Imam Abu ‘Abdullah Malik ibn Anas (r.a.) wrote, in his al-Muwaththa’, “In our view the man who rapes a woman, regardless of whether she is a virgin or not, if she is a free woman he must pay a dowry like that of her peers, and if she is a slave he must pay whatever has been detracted from her value.  The punishment is to be carried out on the rapist and there is no punishment for the woman who has been raped, whatever the case.” 

Imam Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi’i (r.a.), was quoted in Kitab al-Umm, “If a man acquires by force a slave girl, then has sexual intercourse with her after he acquires her by force, and if he is not excused by ignorance, then the slave girl will be taken from him, he is required to pay the fine, and he will receive the punishment for illegal sexual intercourse.”  The punishment was public lashing. 

Since then, further rulings have outright banned slave taking, and the penalties for rape have been made even more severe. 

Brother Marquis Dawkins: Brother Safi Kaskas translated “maa malakat aymanukum” as “those whom your right hand is given in trust.” 

Brother Fabian Sim: I have a question, however.  If further rulings have outright banned slave taking, what about the slaves in the Ottoman Empire?  And even before that? Do the rulings forbid slave trading? 

Brother Terence Helikaon Nunis: Unfortunately, there will always be Muslim groups and polities that viewed slavery as acceptable.  And that includes the Ottomans and the Barbary pirates.  They were not Islamic as opposed to being merely Muslim.  Strictly by doctrine, the sunnah is the freeing of slaves, not taking them. 

Sister Shahbano Aliani: Brother Terence Helikaon Nunis has responded so well, with so much detail.  Thank you.  I would only like to add that we must bear in mind that when we speak of slavery, it meant something very different in the early days of Islam.  It was not the brutal chattel slavery practiced in the USA, for instance.  I think when people speak of it in modern times, they assume it was identical or similar to the slavery of African Americans in the USA. 

The Islamic form of slavery was an indentured servitude with the intent to rehabilitate war captures, not to profit or benefit from the slaves. this is why pregnant slave women and children born of them were free, for instance.  In the USA, the slave owner owned the children born from slave women, who remained slaves, enriching the master. and this is also why within a 100 years, the practice was abolished by the Muslims. 

Sister Sofia Chequer: Thanks for that.  The modern concept of civilisation has been shaped around what was practiced in the Americas, which has not always been the case throughout human history.