Many islamic scholars today believe that many of the passages relating to this topic may have resulted from mohammads detour into satany. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C7:3289:5B00:4C34:792B:8621:2D64 ( talk) 14:28, 7 August 2020 (UTC) @ WilliamOR81: you changed the original text which read
While classical Islamic law permits sexual slavery, the vast majority of Muslims today oppose it. This contradiction is demonstrated by Ahmed Hassan, a twentieth century translator of Sahih Muslim, who prefaced the translated chapter on marriage by claiming that Islam only allows sex within marriage. This was despite the fact that the same chapter included many references to Muslim men having sex with slave-girls. Most ordinary Muslims ignore the existence of slavery and concubinage in Islamic history and texts. Most also ignore the millennia old consensus permitting it and a few writers even claim that those Islamic jurists who allowed sexual relations outside marriage with female slaves were mistaken.
The text indicated in bold above was removed by you.
However, the source material says,
These questions arise urgently when one considers that classical Islamic law accepts both slavery as an institution and the sexual use of female slaves, whereas the overwhelming majority of Muslims today completely reject all forms of slavery. [1]
And on the very next page says,
Yet quite a number of late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century Muslim authors and laypeople gloss over the existence of slavery, and especially concubinage, in Muslim history and texts. [2]
A little further down it says,
Given that the vast majority of contemporary Muslims reject slavery, many have chosen to ignore the issue. Rather than reiterate the classical religious permission for slavery and slave concubinage, even to oppose it, they seem to believe that a moderate or progressive agenda is better served by emphasizing the contemporary agreement that slavery, and especially concubinage, is forbidden as completely outside the bounds of Muslim sexual morality. Although a few authors deny the validity of slave concubinage outright, asserting that “those jurists of Islamic law who laid down the rule that a master may have [a] sexual relationship with his female slave without marriage are totally mistaken,” most simply ignore what prevailed as the consensus for over a millennium. [3]
Given that the original text is more faithful to the source material than your version, I am reinstating it. Mcphurphy ( talk) 21:02, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
References
The section could be broken up into different parts and improved as it is here [ [1]] As it currently stands, I agree with the points made by WilliamOR81 in the edit history. 39.37.132.106 ( talk) 23:44, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
This article mainly deals with concubinage in Islam, not sexual slavery in Islam. "Sexual slavery" is a broad term that includes Forced marriage and Forced prostitution. Therefore this article should be renamed accordingly. If for some reason we decide that we want to deal with "sexual slavery" not concubinage, then we should include the magnitude of efforts Muslims have made against prostitution and forced marriage. VR talk 02:15, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
( ←) @ Mcphurphy: You insist that this link presents sources that talk about "sexual slavery" in Islam. Yet when I look it, many of the sources don't even contain the term "sexual slavery". For example, the second link on those results is this book. I searched this book and it doesn't contain a single mention of "sexual slavery". If you disagree then provide the exact page number and quote. If you agree that the sources don't contain the term "sexual slavery", then why do you keep insisting on that link? VR talk 21:23, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
Okay so a lot of material is being removed by incoming editors. But the reasons in their edit summaries are not adequate. And some other texts are being changed to say something completely different to what the cited sources are saying. There is also a lot of unsourced and unverifiable content being added such as "Islam strongly discourages slavery." That goes against the academic consensus, as stated by eminent historian Ehud R. Toledano.
Okay lets look into the three objections given by @ Arsi786: in his edit summary [10] for the last blanket removal. His stated reasons doesn't cover everything. In other words, he has not explained the reason for removing each thing that he has removed. It seems like I will have to do this the hard way and quote the actual source material for each and every sentence which is being wrongly changed. Please leave this section untouched while I go get the quotes from the sources and paste them here. I also request editors to keep this page on hold as I want to keep up with all the changes being made and explain why they are unwarranted. Right now, things are going too fast for any explanation. Thank you. Mcphurphy ( talk) 06:06, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
I am placing here each single sentence of my version next to the material from the original sources. Other editors can take a look, compare and verify whether my text has faithfully represented the source material or not. I am going to tag the editors I remember being active here. Perhaps they can judge this. @ Koreangauteng: and @ Eperoton:
My text: The Hanafi scholars allow the husband to have sex with his wife against her will, as long as he has paid her dowry.
Source text:
Hanafi texts extend the ruling on loss of support for physical absence to also uphold its converse: physical presence in the marital home suffices for support...A wife who remained in her husband's home but refused hi sexually retained her claim to maintenance. Sexual refusal did not constitute nushuz, bevause it did not, in this view, make her sexually unavailable; as long as she remained physically present, he could have secual access to her even against her will...Still, while forcible intercourse might be sinful if th wife had the moral high ground because of unpaid dower, if an upnaid dower was not at issue then the husband's right "to have sex with her against her will" went unquestioned. In this case, they agreed: "It is lawful, because she is a wrongdoer (zalima)." The wife's reproachable behaviour justifies the husband's action. Al-Khassaf who reports these views, did not even raise the possibility that forced intervourse in these circumstances might be a sin.
— Kecia Ali, Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam, Harvard University Press, p. 83
My text: The Shafi'i, Maliki and Hanbali schools do not forbid a husband from forcing his wife to have sex nor do they expressly say anything in favour of it. For all Sunni law schools the concept of marital rape is an oxymoron.
Source text:
The silence of the Hanafis can be explained easily: a wife's sexual refusal is irrelevant if not accompanied by her departure from the conjugal home, because her husband is permitted to have sex with her without her consent. Non-Hanafis do not penalize a husband for forcing sex on his wife, but neither do they explicitly authorize it in the way that al-Khassaf does. For all, marital rape is an oxymoron; rape (ightisab) is a property crime that by the definition cannot be committed by the husband.
— Kecia Ali, Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam, Harvard University Press, p. 120
My text: According to the Islamic jurists, rape is either a kind of zina or a property crime, which by definition cannot be committed by a husband or master, since he is the owner of his wife and slave's sexual capacity.
Source text:
This scenario is never, however, illicit in the jurists’ conceptual world. Nonconsensual sex—what contemporary Westerners would term rape—might be either a coercive subset of zina¯, with blame lifted from the coerced participant, or a type of usurpation (ightisab), a property crime that by definition cannot be committed by a husband or owner, who possesses an entitlement to, or ownership over, his wife’s or slave’s sexual capacity.
— Kecia Ali (2017). "Concubinage and Consent". International Journal of Media Studies. 49. doi:10.1017/S0020743816001203
My text: There is no requirement in any of the Sunni law schools for the master to have his female slave's consent before he has sex with her.
Source text:
Though I believe in the strongest possible terms that meaningful consent is a prerequisite for ethical sexual relationships, I am at a loss to find this stance mirrored in the premodern Muslim legal tradition, which accepted and regulated slavery, including sex between male masters and their female slaves....I recall no instance in any Maliki, Hanafi, Shafii, or Hanbali text from the 8th to 10th centuries where anyone asserts that an owner must obtain his female slave’s consent before having sex with her. Indeed, I am aware of no case where anyone asks whether her consent is necessary or
— Kecia Ali(2017). "Concubinage and Consent". International Journal of Media Studies. 49. doi:10.1017/S0020743816001203
My text: A slave, by legal definition, does not have the capacity to refuse consent.
Source text:
Complete legal capacity is only held in a person who has complete control of their body and mind. Slavery is premised upon the absence of control over the body, since it transfers control of the body and labour of the slave to another person, including sexual control. Therefore to ask the question pertaining to compulsion or consent of the enslaved person is to ask a question that does not have legal salience. Enslavement by definition removes the requirement for consent.
— Seedat, Fatima (2016). "Sexual economies of war and sexual technologies of the body: Militarised Muslim masculinity and the Islamist production of concubines for the caliphate". Agenda. 30 (3). doi:10.1080/10130950.2016.1275558.
My text: Coercing a concubine to have sex was fundamentally legal.
Source text:
Coercion within marriage or concubinage might be repugnant, but it remained fundamentally legal.
— Hina Azam, Sexual Violation in Islamic Law: Substance, Evidence, and Procedure, Cambridge University Press, p. 69
My text: The Hanafis explicitly state that a man may force the woman to sexually satisfy him.
Source text:
The followers of Imam Abu Hanifah said: "The right of the sexual pleasure belongs to the man, not the woman, by that it is meant that the man has the right to force the woman to gratify himself sexually.
— Al-jaziri, abd Al-rahman; Roberts, Nancy (2009). Islamic Jurisprudence According To The Four Sunni Schools Al Fiqh 'ala Al Madhahib Al Arba'ah. Fons Vitae. ISBN 978-1887752978.
My text: It is mentioned in Kitab al-Maghazi that Uthman ibn Affan had sexual intercourse with a war captive, Zaynab bint Hayyan, and that she "detested" him.
Source text:
He gave Uthman b. Affan a slave girl named Zaynab b. Hayyan b. Amr. Uthman had intercourse with her and she detested him.
— Rizwi Faizer. The Life of Muhammad: Al-Waqidi's Kitab Al-Maghazi. 2013. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-92114-8.
My text: Muhammad and his Companions took for granted the allowance of having sex with female war captives. The consent of the women was irrelevant. Some modern Muslim writers seek to defend Islam by claiming that Islam permits men to have sex with female captives as a way of integrating them into society.
Source text:
The permissibility of sex with the captive women was taken for granted by all the men involved, including the Prophet himself. (There is no indication of what the captured women thought, or the wives of the men involved.) Not only do the Prophet and the soldiers ignore the question of the women’s consent or lack thereof, but so does Algosaibi, focusing solely on contraception in his discussion of this hadith.
— Kecia Ali . Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur'an, Hadith and Jurisprudence. 2016. p. 60
My text: But in the case of the women from the Banu Mustaliq tribe who were captured by the Companions, their captors wanted to practice coitus interruptus during sex with them because if these women became pregnant their captors would not be able to return them in exchange for ransom. According to Kecia Ali, modern Muslim scholarship is silent on the implications of this episode and only considers the event in the context of discussing contraceptive practices.
Source text:
When directly confronted, in a polemical context, with historical and textual permission for the sexual use of unfree women, Muslim authors sometimes respond defensively, seeking to protect Islam’s reputation. It may be argued, for instance, that Islamic “slavery” bore no resemblance to harsh American chattel slavery. In this view, the Qur’anic permission for men to have sex with “what their right hands possess” was merely a way of integrating war captives into society. Sometimes, it is added that the captives would be “integrated” into the Muslim community through becoming the property of a specific man who would be responsible for them and their offspring. Whatever merit these arguments have in the context of inter-communal polemics and apologetics, however, they are insufficient for internal Muslim reflection. In particular, the notion that women would be integrated into society by bearing offspring to their owners or captors does not apply to the case of the Bani Mustaliq: the rationale for the captors to practice withdrawal, according to other accounts, is that they did not want to impregnate the women lest they spoil their chances to ransom them.
— Kecia Ali . Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur'an, Hadith and Jurisprudence. 2016. p. 61
My text: All four law schools also have a consensus that the master can marry off his female slave to someone else without her consent. A master can also practice coitus interruptus during sex with his female slave without her permission.
Source text:
They agreed unanimously that an enslaved female’s consent was never required for a marriage contracted by her owner. Al Shafii (d. 820) is typical: “He may marry off his female slave without her permission whether she is a virgin or non-virgin.”7 It strains logic to suggest that an enslaved woman is subject to being married off without her consent or against her will to whomever her owner chooses but that he cannot have sex with her himself without her consent... All accepted—sometimes tacitly, sometimes explicitly—that a man could practice withdrawal with his own female slave without seeking her permission
— Ali, Kecia (2017). "Concubinage and Consent". International Journal of Media Studies. 49. doi:10.1017/S0020743816001203
My text: A man having sex with someone else's female slave constitutes zina.
Source text:
A man’s intercourse with a female slave might constitute zina¯ only if she belongs to someone else.
— Ali, Kecia (2017). "Concubinage and Consent". International Journal of Media Studies. 49. doi:10.1017/S0020743816001203
My text: If a man marries off his own female slave and has sex with her even though he is then no longer allowed to have sexual intercourse with her, that sex is still considered a lesser offence than zina and the jurists say he must not be punished. It is noteworthy that while formulating this ruling, it is the slave woman's marriage and not her consent which is an issue.
Source text:
Even if he marries off his own slave and no longer has lawful access to her, his having sex with her is a lesser transgression than zina¯. The jurists’ occasional affirmations that a married female slave whose owner nonetheless has sex with her is not to be punished is the closest any of these texts comes to considering the relevance of an enslaved woman’s consent. Notably, the issue emerges only because she is married to another man, a marriage for which jurists uniformly agree that her consent would have been unnecessary
— Ali, Kecia (2017). "Concubinage and Consent". International Journal of Media Studies. 49. doi:10.1017/S0020743816001203
My text: However, Hanafi jurists state that the umm walad status is contingent on the master acknowledging paternity of the child. If he does not accept that he is the father of the child then both the mother and child remain slaves.
Source text:
Schacht also states "The Hanafis on the other hand hold the view that the paternity of the child and the character of the slave as umm al-walad in this case depends entirerly on an acknowledgement by the master.' That is, if the master does not explicitkly acknowledge the paternity of the child, the mother of that child would remain a slave and not become an umm walad; her children then, would also be slaves.
— Jonathan E. Brockopp. Early Mālikī Law: Ibn ʻAbd Al-Ḥakam and His Major Compendium of Jurisprudence. 2000. BRILL. ISBN 90-04-11628-1. p. 201
Mcphurphy ( talk) 10:28, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
The source cited in this section was Yohanan Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion in Islam : Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 2003. [12] I will present the original text added by me and present it with the source material. The irony is that @ Arsi786: has modified my text to say the complete opposite of what the source is saying.
1. My text: Most traditional scholars require the conversion of a pagan slave-girl before sex, even through force if necessary.
Source text:
We have also seen that according to the prevalent view of the traditionists, a female polytheist must be converted to Islam, by coercive measures if necessary, before any sexual relationship with her can take place.
— pp. 176-177
2. My text: The majority of jurists do not allow sexual intercourse with Zoroastrian or pagan female captives. They require a conversion of these women before sex can take place. Ibn Hanbal allowed sexual intercourse with pagan and Zoroastrian female captives if they are forced to become Muslim. Many traditions state that the female captives should be forced to accept Islam if they do not convert willingly. Hasan al-Basri narrates that Muslims would achieve this objective through various methods. They would order the Zoroastrian slave-girl to face the qiblah, utter the shahada and perform wudhu. Her captor would then have sex with her after one menstrual cycle. However, others add the condition that the slave-girl must be taught to pray and purify herself before the master can have sex with her. The scholars significantly lower the threshold of conversion for the girls so that the master may be able to have sex with her as soon as possible. Only a few early scholars permitted sex with pagan and Zoroastrian slaves girls without conversion.
Source text:
The prevalent view of the jurisprudents is that sexual intercourse of any kind is not permissible with Zoroastrian or idolatrous women. According to some, a Muslim who has intercourse with such a woman is (from the religious view point) not better than the infidel woman herself. This being so, most fuqaha maintain that women belonging to these groups should embrace Islam before any intercourse can take place. If they refuse, they are used as servants, but sexual intercourse with them is not permitted. This is evidently not an optimal solution, and numerous traditions maintain that women who refuse to embrace Islam willingly should be subjected to coercion. According to a report included in the Jami of al-Khalal (d. 311 A.H./923 A.D.), Ibn ˘Hanbal maintained that if Zoroastrian and idolatrous women are taken prisoner, they are coerced into Islam; if they embrace it, sexual relations with them are permissible and they can (also) be used as maidservants.
— p. 107
The contradiction inherent in this passage is evident: despite the unspecified coercive measures, some of the women in question resisted conversion and, consequently, the masters could not take full advantage of their services. If the only way to embrace Islam is pronouncing the declaration of faith, the conversion of a defiant woman may not be possible: it is not always feasible to force someone to utter the shahada. According to a tradition transmitted on the authority of Hasan al-Basrı, the Muslims used various devices to attain their objective: they turned the Zoroastrian slave-girl toward the Kaaba, ordered her to pronounce the shahada and to perform ablution. Her master then engaged in sexual relations after she had one menstruating period while in his house. Others hold that the master must teach the slave-girl to pray, to purify herself and to shave her private parts before any intercourse. The participation of the girl in this procedure is minimal, and this wording may be interpreted as a considerable lowering of the conversion requirements so that the girl becomes eligible for sexual intercourse as expeditiously as possible. Among the early traditionists, only a few were willing to go beyond this and allow sexual relations with a Zoroastrian slave-girl without insisting on at least a semblance of conversion.
— pp. 107-108
3. My text: Al-Mujahid and Safiid bin al-Musayyab say the master can still have sex with his Zoroastrian or pagan female slave even if she refuses to convert.
Source text:
Conversion to Islam is not mentioned here as a necessary condition for sexual relations. In the opinion of Mujhid, the captive girl should shave her pubic hair, trim her hair and pare her nails. Then she should perform ablution, wash her clothes, pronounce the shahada and perform a Muslim prayer. But even if she refuses to do these things, her master is still allowed to have sexual relations with her once she has had one menstrual period in his house. And Safiıd b. al-Musayyab simply says that “there is nothing wrong in a man having sexual relations with his Zoroastrian slave-girl”
— pp. 177-178
My text: But Ibn Qayyim argues that the Companions of the Prophet had sexual intercourse with Arab captives, such as the women of the Banu Mustaliq tribe, without making the sex conditional on the conversion of the women. He also asserted that no tradition required the conversion of a slave-girl before her master can have sex with her.
Source text:
Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya observes, on the other hand, that: "they (i.e., the Prophet’s companions) did not make sexual relations with Arab captives contingent on their conversion; rather they had sexual relations with them after one menstrual period. God allowed them to do this and did not make it conditional on conversion." Summing up, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya says that there is not a single tradition which makes sexual relations with female captives contingent on their conversion.
— p. 178
Mcphurphy ( talk) 07:23, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
There's a lot of other material in the material which has been changed without justification I will also post a comparison of the material I wrote with the original sources they cite. This will prove verifiability.
My text: Early sources indicate that sexual slavery of women was viewed as both a male privilege and a privilege for the victor over the defeated. Islamic legal texts state that sexual pleasure was a male privilege over women.
Source text:
The citations attributed to early authorities suggest that sexual slavery was seen as a matter of privilege; a male privilege as well as a privilege of the conqueror over a conquered people—which is demonstrated by an interest in slave ethnicities. According to contemporaneous Islamic legal writings, men had a number of privileges over women; sexual pleasure was one of them.
— Pernilla, Myrne (2019). "Slaves for Pleasure in Arabic Sex and Slave Purchase Manuals from the Tenth to the Twelfth Centuries". Journal of Global Slavery. 4: 196–225. doi:10.1163/2405836X-00402004 p. 203
My text: In Islam, it is the male's ownership of a woman's sexual organs which makes sex licit.
Source text:
Established Islamic jurisprudence therefore often describes marriage as a type of sale, with the item being purchased being a wife’s sexual organs. There are qualitative differences between the rights of a wife and a female slave, of course, and the jurists do carefully lay these out, but nevertheless, the concept of male ownership of women’s sexual parts becomes an important part of the traditional juristic understanding of what makes sex licit in Islam.
— Asifa Quraishi-Landes (15 April 2016). "A Meditation on Mahr, Modernity, and Muslim Marriage Contract Law". Feminism, Law, and Religion. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-13579-1. p. 178
My text: South Asian scholars ruled that jihad was not needed to seize non-muslims nor was it necessary to invite them to Islam before seizing them. Raiders were free to take and enslave any non-muslim.
Source text:
From this, South Asian scholars deduced that jihad was irrelevant when seizing infudels, who were "deproved of their rights of freedom without being possessed by anybody." It was unnecessary to invite infidels in the abode of war to embrace Islam before seziningtheir persons, because they were "something which is the property of no particular person and may by law become the property of a Mooslim...They are classed with inanimate beings...thus liable to be reduced to state of property, like things which were originally comon by nature.' For a raider, this entailed that 'such of the inhabitants, as have fallen into his hands, are at his absolute disposal, and may be lawfully reduced to slavery."
— William Gervase Clarence-Smith; W. G. Clarence-Smith (2006). Islam and the Abolition of Slavery. Oxford University Press. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-19-522151-0.
My text: The female slave was essentially a chattel. An owner's slave could also be inherited by an heir.
Source text:
The master could sell her or give her away as a gift. The concubine could not own property, because her master owned everything, although she could carry out a trade or business by herself. Levy described the concubine saying "She has no more right than other chattels". She could be paid compensation for an attack, which resulted in the death of a baby. Also her master could pass her on to his heir as an inheritance.
— Saad, Salma (1990). The legal and social status of women in the Hadith literature. University of Leeds, p. 245
My text: Uthman had sexual intercourse with her and she detested him.
Source text:
He gave Uthman b. Affan a slave girl named Zaynab b. Hayyan b. Amr. Uthman had intercourse with her and she detested him.
— Rizwi Faizer. The Life of Muhammad: Al-Waqidi's Kitab Al-Maghazi. 2013. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-92114-8.
My text: Uyaynah had earlier said at the Siege of Ta'if that he only came to fight for Muhammad so he could get a Thaqif girl and impregnate her. When Umar told Muhammad about Uyayna's comment, Muhammad smiled and called this "acceptable foolishness."
Source text:
He replied: "I, by God, did not come with you to fight the Thaqif, but that Muhammad captures a;-Taif so that I may take a slave-girl from the Thaqif and impregnate her and perhaps she will give birth to my son. Indeed the Thaqif are a fortunate community." Umar informed the Prophet of his words, and the Prophet smiled, and the said: "Such obedient folly."
— Rizwi Faizer. The Life of Muhammad: Al-Waqidi's Kitab Al-Maghazi. 2013. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-92114-8.p. 459
Source text:
He further states that, when Umar b. al-Khattab informed the Prophet what Uyaynah had said, he smiled and said, "[the man exhibits] an acceptable foolishness." [He is an agreeable fool].
— Tabari. The History of al-Tabari Vol. 9: The Last Years of the Prophet: The Formation of the State A.D. 630-632/A.H. 8-11. 1999. Translated by Ismail K. Poonawala. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-88706-692-4
My text: The most fortunate female captives were women like Safiyya and Juwayriah who were freed from slavery and married Muhammad. The lives of female captives depended on whether her tribe could ransom her or if her captor chose to marry her. If neither of the two happened such women suffered because their captors owned their bodies and lives. If they were unattractive the captors would keep them as servants and if they were beautiful the captors were allowed to keep them as their concubines. The captors were also allowed to sell her. Due to this some female captives committed suicide.
Source text:
These were the most fortunate captive women, who held high a position in the life of the Prophet. Therefore, it can be said that the destiny of a captive woman depended on two points: a. if her tribe was able to pay the ransom b. if she was married to her captor. Sometimes neither of these events might occur and therefore the woman suffered and was humiliated because her captor or the one who bought her, had control of both her body and her life. He might keep her as a concubine if she was beautiful and young, or might use her as a servant if she was old and ugly. He had the right to sell her to anyone who was willing to pay her price. On this account some references mentioned captives, who committed suicide
— Saad, Salma (1990). The legal and social status of women in the Hadith literature. University of Leeds, p. 248
My text: A modern scholar on Islamic legal history made an assertion that the Quran does not allow non-consensual sex between masters and female slaves. However, Kecia Ali states that this view is not found anywhere in the pre-modern Islamic legal tradition.
Source text:
A surprising assertion about consent also appears in a recent monograph by a scholar of Islamic legal history who declares in passing that the Quran forbids nonconsensual relationships between owners and their female slaves, claiming that “the master–slave relationship creates a status through which sexual relations may become licit, provided both parties consent.” She contends that “the sources” treat a master’s nonconsensual sex with his female slave as “tantamount to the crime of zina [illicit sex] and/or rape.” Though I believe in the strongest possible terms that meaningful consent is a prerequisite for ethical sexual relationships, I am at a loss to find this stance mirrored in the premodern Muslim legal tradition, which accepted and regulated slavery, including sex between male masters and their female slaves.
— Kecia Ali(2017). "Concubinage and Consent". International Journal of Media Studies. 49. doi:10.1017/S0020743816001203
My text: Furthermore, the majority of modern Muslims are not aware that Islamic jurists had made an analogy between the marriage contract and sale of concubines and many modern Muslims would be offended by the idea that a husband owns his wife's private parts under Islamic law.
Source text:
Most Muslims today either are not aware, or do not like to emphasize, the theoretical presumptions embedded in the Islamic jurisprudence of marriage law because they are quite far from contemporary sensibilities. Established Islamic marriage contract law uses the contract of sale as its basic conceptual framework—a model which leads to some uncomfortable conclusions about what is being sold and the role of women’s agency in that sale. Even more out of step with modernity is a historical context in which slavery and concubinage were socially acceptable. Because of their presumption that a man may legally have sex with his female slave, classical Muslim jurists draw an analogy between a marriage contract and a contract for sale of a concubine, using this analogy to work out the doctrinal details of the respective rights (sexual and otherwise) of a husband and wife.
— Asifa Quraishi-Landes (15 April 2016). "A Meditation on Mahr, Modernity, and Muslim Marriage Contract Law". Feminism, Law, and Religion. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-13579-1. p. 178
Source text:
Polygamy is tolerated in some Muslim circles, but the idea of male ownership of a wife’s sexual parts in marriage would strike most contemporary Muslims as inappropriate and probably offensive to a healthy sexual relationship
— Asifa Quraishi-Landes (15 April 2016). "A Meditation on Mahr, Modernity, and Muslim Marriage Contract Law". Feminism, Law, and Religion. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-13579-1. p. 1782
In Islam, it is the male's ownership of a woman's sexual organs which makes sex licit.
Although equality is a contested concept, Muslims around the world nevertheless speak of marriage in terms of reciprocal complementary rights and duties, mutual consent, and with respect for women's agency. Polygamy is tolerated in some Muslim circles, but the idea of male ownership of a wife's sexual parts in marriage would strike most contemporary Muslims as inappropriate and probably offensive to a healthy relationship.
@ Vice regent: 1. The views of 1.6 billon (lay) Muslims are not a criterion in either Islamic jurisprudence or Wikipedia. Besides their views were already represented in the "Modern Muslim views" section. So the WP:FRINGE argument does not apply.
My own reading of the relevant Quranic texts has always led me to a different conclusion than that held by the majority of classical Muslim jurists.Note the word "majority" here. We can't make a WP:FALSEBALANCE between majority and minority viewpoints.
Theorizing about what could be the commonality between these two situations, these jurists come to the conclusion that some sort of male ownership (the Arabic term is “milk,” meaning control or dominion) is instrumental in legitimizing sexual activity. As Kecia Ali explains in her detailed study of the subject, “a comparison [i]s drawn between the dominion imposed by a husband through which his wife is caused to surrender her sexual self and the sovereignty established by the master [over his slave]” (Ali 2010: 15). Established Islamic jurisprudence therefore often describes marriage as a type of sale, with the item being purchased being a wife’s sexual organs. There are qualitative differences between the rights of a wife and a female slave, of course, and the jurists do carefully lay these out, but nevertheless, the concept of male ownership of women’s sexual parts becomes an important part of the traditional juristic understanding of what makes sex licit in Islam.
Mcphurphy ( talk) 05:48, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
The article currently says:
Concubinage was not a common practice among the civilizations which the early Muslims had conquered and it was condemned wherever it existed.
The author does say it was condemned by Christians in the Byzantine empire. But I could not find the exact text of "condemned wherever it existed". Especially, since the author also points that concubinage was allowed by the Mazdean faith in Persia, and as practiced in the Sassanian Empire. What is the source for this? VR talk 08:47, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
The Jewish position on the subject is particularly difficult to ascertain; although concubinage appears in Biblical texts, it seems to have fallen out of favour a long time before the birth of Muhammad and is rarely mentioned. We can only say that in later peiods Jewish legal authorities under Islamic rule prohibited Jews from sexual intercourse with their slave women on pain of death...Despite this small caveat, there is still no way we can equate derivations of the Roman practice of concubinatus as it existed in the seventh century Christian Near East with concubinage as practised by Muslims- and it is safe to say that the Christians utterly condemned Islamic behaviour in this regard...So with the taking of concubines, and the full acceptance of their offspring, the Muslims did something that contrasted with the prevailing norms of every major Near-Eastern religious practice of the conquest era-including that of the pre-Islamic Hijaz. By allowing unlimited concubinage they were overturining the Roman understanding of it being a monogamous institution, and by allowing it at all they were in conflict with Jewish and Christian law. Even in the only religious system that did allow concubinage in something approaching the Islamic sense - the Mazdaean- there were important discreprancies.
This plain stupid. Stop monopolizing the article, this is not your personal wikipedia section. Firman.Nst ( talk) 02:16, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
The topic of this article is Concubinage in Islam, not List of rapes committed by Muslims. So we can't just list every horrific rape committed by Muslims in this article, like happened here. The source doesn't mention Islam or anything about Islam. Yes it is true that Muslims have committed rapes (and Muslim women were raped during the same time), but that doesn't belong in this article.
The entire section should be removed. For now I've only reverted the new edits to it, and not removed the previous material, to give time for some discussion first. VR talk 16:27, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Usually, rape and sexual assault were invariably followed by abduction of the victimised women. These abducted women typically became domestic servants and sex slaves. Many abducted women were sold into prostitution and some, in very rare instances, were married to their abductors and later claimed to be leading happy and respectable lives
— Arunima Dey, Violence Against Women During the Partition of India: Interpreting Women and their Bodies in the Context of Ethnic Genocide, pg. 109 [1]
Armed Pathans, operating in bands, were perhaps the worst offenders in West Punjab, especially in the districts of the Rawalpindi division (where they were concentrated), for it was they who systematically preyed upon the refugee trains and convoys, carrying off women to be sold for as little as Rs10 or 20 to Muslim men. Non-Muslim women from Kashmir also were offered for sale in West Punjab, ending up as 'slave girls' in factories. A report from Sargodha district claimed,The Pathans brought a very large number of abducted women and children from the Kashmir front and they had been selling these like cattle and chattel. There were cases in which a woman had been sold thrice or four times. The Pathans had made this a regular trade.
— Andrew Major, ‘The chief sufferers’: Abduction of women during the partition of the Punjab, pg. 62 [2]
"They shot everyone who couldn't recite the kalima - the Arabic-language Muslim declaration of faith. Many non-Muslim women were enslaved, while many others jumped in the river to escape capture."..."They had returned with war booty," he says. "Some had brought cattle, some horses. Most of them had brought arms, and many brought women. One Afridi tribesman walked back with two women in tow. They wept incessantly and just wouldn't stop.""
— BBC [3]
The Punjabi Sikh and Hindu girls and Kashmiri women are proverbially beautiful, so they were in great demand in the Muslim countries of Africa and the Middle East. They were sold there by the barbarian Muslim kidnappers for very high prices. These ill fated women were confined in their purchasers' harems and bound to accept concubinage
— Amal Kumar Chattopadhyay, Slavery in India, pg. 129
Many Pandits and Sikhs in Kashmir shared a parallel fate as the Yazidi shortly after the partition of India and Pakistan in October 1947. Aided by Pakistani army regulars, Islamist tribesmen descended into the Kashmir valley killing hundreds of Hindu and Sikh men, forcibly converted thousands while raping and taking the women as sex slaves back to Pakistan.
— HuffPost, "How Genocide Brought Together Two Unlikely Communities: The Yazidi & the Hindus" [4]
Mcphurphy said
Any instance of Muslims practising sexual slavery belongs in this article.
That's not the name of this article. Do you wish to start another article with the name List of rapes committed by Muslims? There is a big disconnect between what Islam says about concubinage and the rapes some Muslims have committed in history. VR talk 14:02, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
References
the issue of abducted women was so widespread that the governments of India and Pakistan established the Inter-Dominion Agreement on November 1947 for the recovery of abducted women from both sides of the border. To begin with, 9,000 women were recovered from India and over 5,500 from Pakistan during the first year of the Recovery Act. By December 1949, the numbers had risen to 12,500 Muslim women recovered from India and over 6,200 Hindu and Sikh women from Pakistan.
"many Muslim slave-owners, on the eve of their death, liked to release their slaves from bondage. They did so in accordance with the teachings of their Prophet Muhammed, who had always taught his disciples not to own slaves. Muhammed, further, laid down that the soul of any master, who would release at least one of his slaves before he dies, would go to Behasta (heaven), and God himself would receive him there He asked his followers to treat the captive slaves generously. Moreover, the Koran never admitted slavery as a recognised institution. And the Muslim slave- owners of India generally treated their slaves generously and leniently throughout the Muslim rule." (pg 28 'Slavery in India”)
Mcphurphy ( talk) 11:56, 30 June 2020 (UTC)In this nefarious design, the Pakistan Government made an internal secret agreement called “Zen and Zar “with the Pathan mercenaries according to which if Mirpur city was captured, the captured women would be taken by the Pathans and the immovable property would be the share of Pakistan Government.
— C P Gupta, Fall of Mirpur, The Daily Excelsior [1]
No one could predict how long this sold-off woman would remain there. These poor women were housed by the government in the Kunja camp as there was fighting going on in Kashmir. The army handed them over to us when they were useless...All 600 had been used by the Pakistani army...Pakistan's attitude was that it should be thankful that it had managed to recover so many women. Naturally, they would not admit that they had any hand in the situation the women found themselves in.
— Borders and Boundaries [2]
One Muslim member of the Legislative Assembly was said to have five hundred girls in his possession in West Punjab, while an abducted Muslim girl from a well-known family was reported to be with the Maharaja of Patiala. In West Punjab police officials, members of the Muslim League and landed magnates were involved [3]The Muslim League was the ruling party of Pakistan at the time. I can also show you sources which say that the Pakistani Prime Minister ordered attacks on Hindu trains after which Hindu girls were "distributed" among Muslims. The book "Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947" also documents the role of the Pakistani state in the partition violence. Pakistani scholars such as Ishtiaq Ahmed have corroborated that book's statements and say its claims can be independently verified. Admittedly there was some state involvement on the Indian side too[vhttps://scroll.in/article/813521/did-sardar-patel-order-the-eviction-of-muslims-from-delhi-villages], but those were mainly Sikh princely states. [33] In almost every account given in the book Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947 there are details of the Pakistani military involvement in the killing of Hindus and Sikhs and taking of their women. You are also standing on thing ground by claiming this has nothing to do with Islam. "Jihad" was proclaimed against minorities and maulvis forcibly converted people to Islam. [34] Here is what is said in Chapter 4 of Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947:
"Later they were distributed among the Muslims to be kept as concubines or were forcibly married."Clearly, this is part of historical Muslim practice of concubinage. [35]. Mcphurphy ( talk) 04:31, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Mcphurphy, we were discussing changes on this article a few weeks ago. Then you disappeared for a month (the last comments were mine and you never responded to them). Now you come back out of the blue and start reverting and make other changes without even discussing? Many of your recent changes also have spelling errors. I'm reverting these changes for now. Please continue the discussion. Please don't disturb the status-quo without discussing first. VR talk 16:27, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
They have to get consensus for every sourced sentence they want to remove.
The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.
A prophetic hadith permitted corporal punishment and Ibn al-Jawzi stated that both slaves and wives should put up with physical mistreatment.But the source also says this in the same paragraph that Mcphurphy omitted:
Islamic law strictly prohibited the molestation of dependants, but subordination in the protected sphere of the household made it hard to police transgressions
Any instance of Muslims practising sexual slavery belongs in this article. We simply can't allow this article to become "List of rapes committed by Muslims".
Mcphurphy ( talk) 22:55, 28 June 2020 (UTC)It is clear that, although there are some reports of concubines producing children for the men from before Muammad's generation, they are infrequent and found solely in the generations of his father and grandfather. Like the absence of concubinage in earlier generations, this finding concurs with the traditional narrative sources; concubinage was uncommon in pre-Islamic Arabian society, but this changed for the men of Muhammad's generation as a consequence of military conquests.
— Majied Robinson, Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History, pg.17
A more general objection I have to the lead is that it's using the word "Islam" in an essentializing way. The word is notoriously polysemous and we should be careful about sweeping statements about what "Islam" does or doesn't do. The article scope is clearly about "Islam" in the broadest sense of Islamic civilization. So, I would suggest the lead and the rest of the article take a more historicizing perspective. Sexual exploitation of slaves and other dependents existed in all pre-modern civilizations. Islam is unusual in the Late Antique context in that sexual slavery was legally recognized and regulated, which arguably made the phenomenon more widespread and also in some ways improved the lot of the victims. The lead makes it seem like "Islam" was what caused sexual slavery to exist. I think the lead and the rest of the article would be much improved if it started with a descriptive statement to indicate that sexual slavery was widespread in Islamic civilization, and then build up from civilizational context, via scriptural sources, to classical jurisprudence and then pre-modern history and modern transformations.
I think that starting the article with a discussion of jurisprudence is anachronistic.
(
←) The above is yet another example of Mcphurphy misquoting the sources. He claims that this text: "concubinage was uncommon in pre-Islamic Arabian society, but this changed for the men of Muhammad's generation as a consequence of military conquests."
implies concubinage came from the prophetic practice. Yet, just because something happens in someone's generation doesn't mean they caused it. The text clearly says it happened as a "consequence" (meaning after) the conquests and we know that happened under the Rashidun and Umayyads (after Muhammad's death). "Muhammad's generation" can most certainly apply to the founder of the Umayyad dynasty,
Muawiya. In fact Robinson directly says the opposite of what Mcphurphy wants him to say over
here:
Having exhausted the possibility that the behavior was borrowed we will turn to another seemingly obvious source of chance in marriage behavior - the Quran and Prophetic practice. Here too we will find no obvious parallels between revelation and normatic Islamic concubinage. Instead, it will be suggested that the emergence of was a result of the unique set of circumstances faced by the Muslims of the Umayyad era....
Despite this Mcphuphy
insists Robinson clearly attributes it to the prophetic practice
.
VR
talk
14:17, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
That explanation does seem to clear up the seeming contradictions in Robinson's work that Mcmurphy clings to. Its also quite clearly what he means to say. It's also rather hard to categorize these generations considering Muhammad had uncles his own age or even younger than him. Muwaviya could certainly be included amongst them as could (and in fact is) Ali. 39.37.181.243 ( talk) 15:30, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
"Despite this, according to the narrative suggested by the trends in the nasab data, the Arabs took concubines in large numbers as soon as the conquest began."Mcphurphy ( talk) 10:47, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
"Concubines were still uncommon amongst Muslims of the Prophetic era; this is supported by the near-complete absence of unambiguous references to the institution in the Qur'an and recorded Prophetic practice. Despite this, according to the narrative suggested by the trends in the nasab data, the Arabs took concubines in large numbers as soon as the conquest began."
Mcphurphy ( talk) 13:43, 30 June 2020 (UTC)Like the absence of concubinage in earlier generations, this finding concurs with the traditional narrative sources; concubinage was uncommon in pre-Islamic Arabian society, but this changed for the men of Muhammad's era as a consequence of military conquests.
Mcphurphy ( talk) 03:30, 1 July 2020 (UTC)A study of the Arab genealogical text Nasab Quraysh records the maternity of 3,000 Quraishi tribesmen, most of whom lived in between 500 and 750 CE. [4] The data shows that there was a massive increase in the number of children born to concubines with the emergence of Islam. [4] An analysis of the information found that no children were born from concubines before the generation of Muhammad's grandfather. [5] There were a few cases of children being born from concubines before Muhammad but they were only in his father's and grandfather's generation. The analysis of the data thus showed that concubinage was not common before the time of Muhammad, but increased for men of his generation as a result of military conquests. [6] Due to these conquests, a large number of female slaves were available to the conquerors. Although there were more births, the attitude towards children born from slaves still remained negative. [7] Some early Arab Muslims discriminated against those people who were born fron non-Arab female slaves. However, there is no indication that these attitudes were ever acted upon. [8]
"the Arabs took concubines in large numbers as soon as the conquests began."When did these conquests begin you suppose?
Despite the increasing numbers of children, attitudes towards concubine unions and their progeny remained largely negative.
— Majied Robinson, Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History, pg. 12
Mcphurphy ( talk) 06:52, 1 July 2020 (UTC)None of this should be taken as a denial that, among the early Arab Muslims, there were some who denigrated those with non-Arab slave mothers. This is certainly true, and the earlier scholarship has done a credible job of marshaling the supporting evidence. But, this is not enough to prove these prejudices were ever acted on seriously or held by a critical mass of Muslims."
— Majied Robinson, Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History, pgs. 20-21
( ←) We can add all three of Robinson's claims: 1) that concubinage expansion was not related to Prophetic practice nor the Quran, 2) it was related to Umayyad desire to have more sons, 3) it expanded when the conquests began. VR talk 10:04, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
The article was moved from "Sexual slavery in Islam" to "Concubinage in Islam". At that point the move was agreed to by all except Mcphurphy. Or at least, no one but Mcphurphy objected to the title change.
Now the title is being changed without any sort of discussion let alone consensus. Please seek consensus before changing the title of the article. VR talk 11:43, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Repeatedly removing sourced content without explanation even after being shown that its verifiable is just POV pushing. Vishnu Sahib ( talk) 03:41, 30 June 2020 (UTC)Muhammad gave a girl called Zaynab bint Hayyan to Uthman ibn Affan. Uthman had sexual intercourse with her and she detested him.
I would disagree concubinage is more accurate and acceptable in academia while “sex slavery” is not even in Islam the term used for such women is Surriya (concubine) not sex slave. CircassianBilyal ( talk) 15:29, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
Lets consider what famous concubines in Islamic history are called by reliable sources: "concubine" or "sex slave"/"sexual slave"?
I could probably go on. "Concubine" seems to be the normative term for women we seem to be describing here. VR talk 09:01, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
academic sources which are obviously about Islamic sexual slavery like "Slavery and sexual ethics in Islam". That chapter is from a book that uses the term "concubinage" on 24 pages, and the term "concubine" on 25 pages. It uses "sexual slavery" one only one page, and not in connection with Islam.
Mcphurphy What was contentious and undue about this edit? The section is about modern Muslim attitudes. Imam Zaid is a modern scholar. This content fits in that section. Dr Silverstein ( talk) 08:52, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
@
Dr Silverstein the statement that you added was very subjective as if Imam Zaid Shakir speaks for the entire entire modern Muslim community. It is a very well established fact that sexual relationships with females slaves or captives of war are allowed all mainstream Muslim schools of jurisprudence. You can't simply pick views of any random Imam and pretend as if he speaks for the Muslim community who aren't ISIS members.
Balolay (
talk)
11:14, 16 July 2020 (UTC)banned user
Muhammad having sex with his slave is not directly mentioned in the Article. It is only indirectly referenced in the line Muhammad and his Companions took for granted the allowance of having sex with female war captives.
I understand that Primary sources are not to be quoted directly without proper context and reference . But, Islamic legal sanction comes directly from words of Allah and actions of Muhammad, hence, I think it is quite relevant to quote it here. Inviting further comments from other editors and specifically @ Mcphurphy who has done most of the recent additions. Dhawangupta ( talk) 22:04, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
The article currently says Umar prohibited slave girls from resembling free women and forbade them from covering their hair
. The source given is
Khaled Abou El Fadl (1 October 2014). Speaking in God's Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women page 198. I looked at that page and couldn't find the quote. Please provide the full quote.
VR
talk
00:44, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
"In fact, it is reported that Umar b. al-Khattab prohibited slave-girls from imitating free women by covering their hair."Mcphurphy ( talk) 01:46, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
page 525 VR talk 21:18, 14 July 2020 (UTC)Some of the late jurists argued that if a slave-girl will cause a fitnah she must cover her breasts or hair. Al-Hattab relates that although a slave womans ‘awrah is the same as a man’s, some have said that it is reprehensible for someone who is not her owner to view what is under her garments, or to view her breasts, chest, or whatever else “leads to fitnah”. Consequently, despite having the same ‘awrah as men, it is preferred that she bare her head but cover her body. Al-Bahuti relates views suggesting that as a matter of caution, it is preferrable that the slave-girl cover herself in the same fashion as an adult free woman, including covering her head during prayer.
The article says The Hanafis allowed potential male buyers to uncover and touch a female slave's arms, breasts and legs
. Please provide the source quote for this. I'm asking because it directly contradicts a reliable source:
Ibn Abidin also argues that most of the scholars of the Ḥanafi school do not permit a slave woman to have her breasts, chest, or back exposed; however it is said that a slave woman’s chest is part of her awrah only in prayer but not otherwise. Nevertheless, Ibn Abidin finds this latter view unconvincing." Khaled Abou El Fadl (1 October 2014). Speaking in God's Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women, page 525
In any case, WP:NPOV requires the above content I provided to also be included and the content to be rewritten with attribution. VR talk 00:48, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
"The women’s bodies were examined before the purchase and Hanafi jurists permitted male potential buyers of a female slave to “uncover her legs, her arms, her breast (ṣadr), and to touch her carefully.”I am okay with you adding your material provided that you do not remove pre-existing content. Also be careful not to break text flow. So show me here please what you want to include into the article before you add it. Mcphurphy ( talk) 01:53, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
There has been a debate and even a move war as to whether this article should continue to be called "Concubinage in Islam" or be moved to "Sexual slavery in Islam". Below I will present reasons for keeping the name "Concubinage in Islam":
In all the sections below (except "general discussion") please keep comments directly related to the evidence I provided, for example, if I accidentally misquoted something. Any comments not directly related to the evidence I provided should go in "General discussion". VR talk 20:24, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
"Concubinage" and its variants are used far more often than "sexual slavery" and its variants in the most commonly used sources in this article. I went through more than a dozen and compiled my results below.
# occurrences of "concubine" and "concubinage" | # occurrences of "sexual slave", "sexual slavery", "sex slave" and "sex slavery" | Comments | |
---|---|---|---|
Kecia Ali (2010), Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam | More than 100 | None | |
W. G. Clarence-Smith (2006). Islam and the Abolition of Slavery | More than 100 | None | A whole subchapter is named "Concubines and eunuchs" |
Kecia Ali (2017). "Concubinage and Consent" | 11 | None | The article's title itself contains the term "concubinage" |
Friedmann, Yohanan (2003). Tolerance and Coercion in Islam : Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition | 8 | None | |
Kecia Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur'an, Hadith and Jurisprudence | More than 50 | 1 | |
Toledano et al. A Global History of Anti-Slavery Politics in the Nineteenth Century | 3 | None | All three concubine references are in connection to the Ottoman Empire |
Seedat, Fatima (2016). "Sexual economies of war and sexual technologies of the body: Militarised Muslim masculinity and the Islamist production of concubines for the caliphate" | More than 40 | 3 | The article has "concubines" in the title itself. Also, one of the three "sexual slavery" references is to Guatemala which has nothing to do with Islam. |
Bernard Lewis (1992). Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry | More than 30 | None | |
Matthew S. Gordon et al (2017). Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History | More than 11 | 3 | The name of the book contains "Concubine" and titles of chapters 1, 8 and 13 all contain "concubinage" or "concubines" |
Avril A. Powell, "Indian Muslim modernists and the issue of slavery in Islam" in Slavery and South Asian History | More than 15 | None | More than 15 references to "concubinage" in the chapter on "Indian Muslim modernists and the issue of slavery in Islam" alone. Many more references to concubinage in connection with Islam in the rest of the book. |
Majied, Robinson. Marriage in the Tribe of Muhammad: A Statistical Study of Early Arabic Genealogical Literature | More than 10 | None | |
Y. Erdem (1996). Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and its Demise 1800-1909 | 5 | None | |
Janet Afary (2009). Sexual Politics in Modern Iran | More than 100 | 1 | Also has a subchapter named "Slave concubinage, temporary marriage, and harem wives" |
Chouki El Hamel (2013). Black Morocco: A History of Slavery, Race, and Islam | More than 100 | None | First chapter is called "The Notion of Slavery and the Justification of Concubinage as an Institution of Slavery in Islam" |
VR talk 20:24, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
Quotes from reliable sources that use the term "concubine"
|
---|
"Concubine" is the term used by reliable sources to describe the concepts covered in this article. For example, one major topic covered here is umm al-walad. Women designated as umm al-walad are commonly described as concubines:
Besides that, women who are the subject of this article are called "concubine" not "sexual slave".
|
VR talk 20:24, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
As mentioned above, many of the sources that use the term "sexual slavery" with respect to Muhammad's concubines tend to be anti-Islam. It is telling that when I asked Mcphurphy to provide sources that use the term "sexual slavery" with respect to Islam, Mcphurphy pointed out to this article: Islam and modern-day sexual slavery. The publisher of that article is a right wing magazine known for spreading hoaxes ( Quadrant_(magazine)#Hoax), and the author of that article, Victoria Kincaid, writes "It is no secret that Islam is the most misogynistic institution in the world".
The term "sexual slavery" is commonly used by reliable sources to describe atrocities committed by ISIL/ISIS. However, this article is about Islam the religion, not "Islamic state" the terrorist group, and it very POV to try and conflate Islam with ISIS. VR talk 20:24, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
WP:COMMONNAME points out that google search results "are subject to certain biases and technical limitations", so we should not give much weight to them (especially in light of all the evidence I provided above). Nevertheless, google results also favor the term "concubinage" over "sexual slavery".
Google search results and methodology
|
---|
Google scholar gives the following results:
|
VR talk 20:24, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
I am a bit busy so don't have enough time these days to take a detailed look. But a brief survey shows a very unconvincing collection of data premised on endless hair-splitting. Concubinage is an example of WP:PEACOCK. The fact that sexual slavery is the WP:COMMONNAME has been pointed out by multiple editors multiple times in discussions above. They don't need repetition in a new section of WP:TEXTWALL. Mcphurphy ( talk) 08:26, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
Sexual slavery in Islam is the more commonly used term on Google scholar and Google search so its to be considered the WP:COMMONNAME.
The term "concubinage in Islam" is an apologetic euphemism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.174.207.74 ( talk) 10:59, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
-- Grufo ( talk) 13:30, 10 August 2020 (UTC)Household slavery was common. Slaveholding, in practice everywhere, included sexual use of enslaved women and sometimes men.
A very misleading and deceptive name! It should be changed to Sexual Slavery! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.255.6.100 ( talk) 09:51, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
There is no real dispute here in academia.-- Karaeng Matoaya ( talk) 16:31, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
@
CambridgeBayWeather: The dispute has ended and we are very far from any consensus about the disputed renaming. Many editors have explictly opposed the new title “Concubinage in Islam”. Among these:
Mcphurphy (many interventions),
Vishnu Sahib (see for example
this comment),
Bolanigak (see for example
this comment),
Dr Silverstein (see for example
this edit),
Dhawangupta (see for example
this comment),
Firman.Nst (see for example
this comment),
Grufo (myself) – I have left out the anonymous IP addresses that have defended both sides and I apologize if I have forgotten to mention anyone else among those who have opposed the new title. What should we do? --
Grufo (
talk)
04:16, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
Wait you're mistaken I support the change to Concubinage in Islam. Firman.Nst ( talk) 07:00, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
Other pre-modern societies can have mixed regulations, where concubines might be both slaves and free women, and where it might be justifiable to focus on the extra-marital status of the relationship rather than the fluid social status of the person involved.Concubines in the Ancient Near East appear to have been at least predominantly enslaved—some sources explicitly distinguish between a "free woman" and a "concubine"—yet they are consistently referred to as "concubines" in specialist sources, e.g. Women in the Ancient Near East. I think you're making assumptions based on the idea that "concubine" is analogous to "lover" unqualified, which again doesn't hold up in a historical context.-- Karaeng Matoaya ( talk) 01:59, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
The page is move protected for almost a year, 1 July 2021. You should look at Wikipedia:Requested moves/Controversial and use that to bring in more editors to comment. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 22:01, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
Concubinage and sexual slavery have different historical contexts. Ideally both deserve separate articles on their own. This was the case until the articles were merged in a haste. However, in the current scenario, sexual slavery in Islam seems to be the right name.
Mingling2 (
talk) 14:15, 25 August 2020 (UTC)Sockpuppet of indef blocked user who has tried to comment on this page many times. See
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mingling2.
VR
talk
22:42, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
Many islamic scholars today believe that many of the passages relating to this topic may have resulted from mohammads detour into satany. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C7:3289:5B00:4C34:792B:8621:2D64 ( talk) 14:28, 7 August 2020 (UTC) @ WilliamOR81: you changed the original text which read
While classical Islamic law permits sexual slavery, the vast majority of Muslims today oppose it. This contradiction is demonstrated by Ahmed Hassan, a twentieth century translator of Sahih Muslim, who prefaced the translated chapter on marriage by claiming that Islam only allows sex within marriage. This was despite the fact that the same chapter included many references to Muslim men having sex with slave-girls. Most ordinary Muslims ignore the existence of slavery and concubinage in Islamic history and texts. Most also ignore the millennia old consensus permitting it and a few writers even claim that those Islamic jurists who allowed sexual relations outside marriage with female slaves were mistaken.
The text indicated in bold above was removed by you.
However, the source material says,
These questions arise urgently when one considers that classical Islamic law accepts both slavery as an institution and the sexual use of female slaves, whereas the overwhelming majority of Muslims today completely reject all forms of slavery. [1]
And on the very next page says,
Yet quite a number of late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century Muslim authors and laypeople gloss over the existence of slavery, and especially concubinage, in Muslim history and texts. [2]
A little further down it says,
Given that the vast majority of contemporary Muslims reject slavery, many have chosen to ignore the issue. Rather than reiterate the classical religious permission for slavery and slave concubinage, even to oppose it, they seem to believe that a moderate or progressive agenda is better served by emphasizing the contemporary agreement that slavery, and especially concubinage, is forbidden as completely outside the bounds of Muslim sexual morality. Although a few authors deny the validity of slave concubinage outright, asserting that “those jurists of Islamic law who laid down the rule that a master may have [a] sexual relationship with his female slave without marriage are totally mistaken,” most simply ignore what prevailed as the consensus for over a millennium. [3]
Given that the original text is more faithful to the source material than your version, I am reinstating it. Mcphurphy ( talk) 21:02, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
References
The section could be broken up into different parts and improved as it is here [ [1]] As it currently stands, I agree with the points made by WilliamOR81 in the edit history. 39.37.132.106 ( talk) 23:44, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
This article mainly deals with concubinage in Islam, not sexual slavery in Islam. "Sexual slavery" is a broad term that includes Forced marriage and Forced prostitution. Therefore this article should be renamed accordingly. If for some reason we decide that we want to deal with "sexual slavery" not concubinage, then we should include the magnitude of efforts Muslims have made against prostitution and forced marriage. VR talk 02:15, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
( ←) @ Mcphurphy: You insist that this link presents sources that talk about "sexual slavery" in Islam. Yet when I look it, many of the sources don't even contain the term "sexual slavery". For example, the second link on those results is this book. I searched this book and it doesn't contain a single mention of "sexual slavery". If you disagree then provide the exact page number and quote. If you agree that the sources don't contain the term "sexual slavery", then why do you keep insisting on that link? VR talk 21:23, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
Okay so a lot of material is being removed by incoming editors. But the reasons in their edit summaries are not adequate. And some other texts are being changed to say something completely different to what the cited sources are saying. There is also a lot of unsourced and unverifiable content being added such as "Islam strongly discourages slavery." That goes against the academic consensus, as stated by eminent historian Ehud R. Toledano.
Okay lets look into the three objections given by @ Arsi786: in his edit summary [10] for the last blanket removal. His stated reasons doesn't cover everything. In other words, he has not explained the reason for removing each thing that he has removed. It seems like I will have to do this the hard way and quote the actual source material for each and every sentence which is being wrongly changed. Please leave this section untouched while I go get the quotes from the sources and paste them here. I also request editors to keep this page on hold as I want to keep up with all the changes being made and explain why they are unwarranted. Right now, things are going too fast for any explanation. Thank you. Mcphurphy ( talk) 06:06, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
I am placing here each single sentence of my version next to the material from the original sources. Other editors can take a look, compare and verify whether my text has faithfully represented the source material or not. I am going to tag the editors I remember being active here. Perhaps they can judge this. @ Koreangauteng: and @ Eperoton:
My text: The Hanafi scholars allow the husband to have sex with his wife against her will, as long as he has paid her dowry.
Source text:
Hanafi texts extend the ruling on loss of support for physical absence to also uphold its converse: physical presence in the marital home suffices for support...A wife who remained in her husband's home but refused hi sexually retained her claim to maintenance. Sexual refusal did not constitute nushuz, bevause it did not, in this view, make her sexually unavailable; as long as she remained physically present, he could have secual access to her even against her will...Still, while forcible intercourse might be sinful if th wife had the moral high ground because of unpaid dower, if an upnaid dower was not at issue then the husband's right "to have sex with her against her will" went unquestioned. In this case, they agreed: "It is lawful, because she is a wrongdoer (zalima)." The wife's reproachable behaviour justifies the husband's action. Al-Khassaf who reports these views, did not even raise the possibility that forced intervourse in these circumstances might be a sin.
— Kecia Ali, Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam, Harvard University Press, p. 83
My text: The Shafi'i, Maliki and Hanbali schools do not forbid a husband from forcing his wife to have sex nor do they expressly say anything in favour of it. For all Sunni law schools the concept of marital rape is an oxymoron.
Source text:
The silence of the Hanafis can be explained easily: a wife's sexual refusal is irrelevant if not accompanied by her departure from the conjugal home, because her husband is permitted to have sex with her without her consent. Non-Hanafis do not penalize a husband for forcing sex on his wife, but neither do they explicitly authorize it in the way that al-Khassaf does. For all, marital rape is an oxymoron; rape (ightisab) is a property crime that by the definition cannot be committed by the husband.
— Kecia Ali, Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam, Harvard University Press, p. 120
My text: According to the Islamic jurists, rape is either a kind of zina or a property crime, which by definition cannot be committed by a husband or master, since he is the owner of his wife and slave's sexual capacity.
Source text:
This scenario is never, however, illicit in the jurists’ conceptual world. Nonconsensual sex—what contemporary Westerners would term rape—might be either a coercive subset of zina¯, with blame lifted from the coerced participant, or a type of usurpation (ightisab), a property crime that by definition cannot be committed by a husband or owner, who possesses an entitlement to, or ownership over, his wife’s or slave’s sexual capacity.
— Kecia Ali (2017). "Concubinage and Consent". International Journal of Media Studies. 49. doi:10.1017/S0020743816001203
My text: There is no requirement in any of the Sunni law schools for the master to have his female slave's consent before he has sex with her.
Source text:
Though I believe in the strongest possible terms that meaningful consent is a prerequisite for ethical sexual relationships, I am at a loss to find this stance mirrored in the premodern Muslim legal tradition, which accepted and regulated slavery, including sex between male masters and their female slaves....I recall no instance in any Maliki, Hanafi, Shafii, or Hanbali text from the 8th to 10th centuries where anyone asserts that an owner must obtain his female slave’s consent before having sex with her. Indeed, I am aware of no case where anyone asks whether her consent is necessary or
— Kecia Ali(2017). "Concubinage and Consent". International Journal of Media Studies. 49. doi:10.1017/S0020743816001203
My text: A slave, by legal definition, does not have the capacity to refuse consent.
Source text:
Complete legal capacity is only held in a person who has complete control of their body and mind. Slavery is premised upon the absence of control over the body, since it transfers control of the body and labour of the slave to another person, including sexual control. Therefore to ask the question pertaining to compulsion or consent of the enslaved person is to ask a question that does not have legal salience. Enslavement by definition removes the requirement for consent.
— Seedat, Fatima (2016). "Sexual economies of war and sexual technologies of the body: Militarised Muslim masculinity and the Islamist production of concubines for the caliphate". Agenda. 30 (3). doi:10.1080/10130950.2016.1275558.
My text: Coercing a concubine to have sex was fundamentally legal.
Source text:
Coercion within marriage or concubinage might be repugnant, but it remained fundamentally legal.
— Hina Azam, Sexual Violation in Islamic Law: Substance, Evidence, and Procedure, Cambridge University Press, p. 69
My text: The Hanafis explicitly state that a man may force the woman to sexually satisfy him.
Source text:
The followers of Imam Abu Hanifah said: "The right of the sexual pleasure belongs to the man, not the woman, by that it is meant that the man has the right to force the woman to gratify himself sexually.
— Al-jaziri, abd Al-rahman; Roberts, Nancy (2009). Islamic Jurisprudence According To The Four Sunni Schools Al Fiqh 'ala Al Madhahib Al Arba'ah. Fons Vitae. ISBN 978-1887752978.
My text: It is mentioned in Kitab al-Maghazi that Uthman ibn Affan had sexual intercourse with a war captive, Zaynab bint Hayyan, and that she "detested" him.
Source text:
He gave Uthman b. Affan a slave girl named Zaynab b. Hayyan b. Amr. Uthman had intercourse with her and she detested him.
— Rizwi Faizer. The Life of Muhammad: Al-Waqidi's Kitab Al-Maghazi. 2013. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-92114-8.
My text: Muhammad and his Companions took for granted the allowance of having sex with female war captives. The consent of the women was irrelevant. Some modern Muslim writers seek to defend Islam by claiming that Islam permits men to have sex with female captives as a way of integrating them into society.
Source text:
The permissibility of sex with the captive women was taken for granted by all the men involved, including the Prophet himself. (There is no indication of what the captured women thought, or the wives of the men involved.) Not only do the Prophet and the soldiers ignore the question of the women’s consent or lack thereof, but so does Algosaibi, focusing solely on contraception in his discussion of this hadith.
— Kecia Ali . Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur'an, Hadith and Jurisprudence. 2016. p. 60
My text: But in the case of the women from the Banu Mustaliq tribe who were captured by the Companions, their captors wanted to practice coitus interruptus during sex with them because if these women became pregnant their captors would not be able to return them in exchange for ransom. According to Kecia Ali, modern Muslim scholarship is silent on the implications of this episode and only considers the event in the context of discussing contraceptive practices.
Source text:
When directly confronted, in a polemical context, with historical and textual permission for the sexual use of unfree women, Muslim authors sometimes respond defensively, seeking to protect Islam’s reputation. It may be argued, for instance, that Islamic “slavery” bore no resemblance to harsh American chattel slavery. In this view, the Qur’anic permission for men to have sex with “what their right hands possess” was merely a way of integrating war captives into society. Sometimes, it is added that the captives would be “integrated” into the Muslim community through becoming the property of a specific man who would be responsible for them and their offspring. Whatever merit these arguments have in the context of inter-communal polemics and apologetics, however, they are insufficient for internal Muslim reflection. In particular, the notion that women would be integrated into society by bearing offspring to their owners or captors does not apply to the case of the Bani Mustaliq: the rationale for the captors to practice withdrawal, according to other accounts, is that they did not want to impregnate the women lest they spoil their chances to ransom them.
— Kecia Ali . Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur'an, Hadith and Jurisprudence. 2016. p. 61
My text: All four law schools also have a consensus that the master can marry off his female slave to someone else without her consent. A master can also practice coitus interruptus during sex with his female slave without her permission.
Source text:
They agreed unanimously that an enslaved female’s consent was never required for a marriage contracted by her owner. Al Shafii (d. 820) is typical: “He may marry off his female slave without her permission whether she is a virgin or non-virgin.”7 It strains logic to suggest that an enslaved woman is subject to being married off without her consent or against her will to whomever her owner chooses but that he cannot have sex with her himself without her consent... All accepted—sometimes tacitly, sometimes explicitly—that a man could practice withdrawal with his own female slave without seeking her permission
— Ali, Kecia (2017). "Concubinage and Consent". International Journal of Media Studies. 49. doi:10.1017/S0020743816001203
My text: A man having sex with someone else's female slave constitutes zina.
Source text:
A man’s intercourse with a female slave might constitute zina¯ only if she belongs to someone else.
— Ali, Kecia (2017). "Concubinage and Consent". International Journal of Media Studies. 49. doi:10.1017/S0020743816001203
My text: If a man marries off his own female slave and has sex with her even though he is then no longer allowed to have sexual intercourse with her, that sex is still considered a lesser offence than zina and the jurists say he must not be punished. It is noteworthy that while formulating this ruling, it is the slave woman's marriage and not her consent which is an issue.
Source text:
Even if he marries off his own slave and no longer has lawful access to her, his having sex with her is a lesser transgression than zina¯. The jurists’ occasional affirmations that a married female slave whose owner nonetheless has sex with her is not to be punished is the closest any of these texts comes to considering the relevance of an enslaved woman’s consent. Notably, the issue emerges only because she is married to another man, a marriage for which jurists uniformly agree that her consent would have been unnecessary
— Ali, Kecia (2017). "Concubinage and Consent". International Journal of Media Studies. 49. doi:10.1017/S0020743816001203
My text: However, Hanafi jurists state that the umm walad status is contingent on the master acknowledging paternity of the child. If he does not accept that he is the father of the child then both the mother and child remain slaves.
Source text:
Schacht also states "The Hanafis on the other hand hold the view that the paternity of the child and the character of the slave as umm al-walad in this case depends entirerly on an acknowledgement by the master.' That is, if the master does not explicitkly acknowledge the paternity of the child, the mother of that child would remain a slave and not become an umm walad; her children then, would also be slaves.
— Jonathan E. Brockopp. Early Mālikī Law: Ibn ʻAbd Al-Ḥakam and His Major Compendium of Jurisprudence. 2000. BRILL. ISBN 90-04-11628-1. p. 201
Mcphurphy ( talk) 10:28, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
The source cited in this section was Yohanan Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion in Islam : Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 2003. [12] I will present the original text added by me and present it with the source material. The irony is that @ Arsi786: has modified my text to say the complete opposite of what the source is saying.
1. My text: Most traditional scholars require the conversion of a pagan slave-girl before sex, even through force if necessary.
Source text:
We have also seen that according to the prevalent view of the traditionists, a female polytheist must be converted to Islam, by coercive measures if necessary, before any sexual relationship with her can take place.
— pp. 176-177
2. My text: The majority of jurists do not allow sexual intercourse with Zoroastrian or pagan female captives. They require a conversion of these women before sex can take place. Ibn Hanbal allowed sexual intercourse with pagan and Zoroastrian female captives if they are forced to become Muslim. Many traditions state that the female captives should be forced to accept Islam if they do not convert willingly. Hasan al-Basri narrates that Muslims would achieve this objective through various methods. They would order the Zoroastrian slave-girl to face the qiblah, utter the shahada and perform wudhu. Her captor would then have sex with her after one menstrual cycle. However, others add the condition that the slave-girl must be taught to pray and purify herself before the master can have sex with her. The scholars significantly lower the threshold of conversion for the girls so that the master may be able to have sex with her as soon as possible. Only a few early scholars permitted sex with pagan and Zoroastrian slaves girls without conversion.
Source text:
The prevalent view of the jurisprudents is that sexual intercourse of any kind is not permissible with Zoroastrian or idolatrous women. According to some, a Muslim who has intercourse with such a woman is (from the religious view point) not better than the infidel woman herself. This being so, most fuqaha maintain that women belonging to these groups should embrace Islam before any intercourse can take place. If they refuse, they are used as servants, but sexual intercourse with them is not permitted. This is evidently not an optimal solution, and numerous traditions maintain that women who refuse to embrace Islam willingly should be subjected to coercion. According to a report included in the Jami of al-Khalal (d. 311 A.H./923 A.D.), Ibn ˘Hanbal maintained that if Zoroastrian and idolatrous women are taken prisoner, they are coerced into Islam; if they embrace it, sexual relations with them are permissible and they can (also) be used as maidservants.
— p. 107
The contradiction inherent in this passage is evident: despite the unspecified coercive measures, some of the women in question resisted conversion and, consequently, the masters could not take full advantage of their services. If the only way to embrace Islam is pronouncing the declaration of faith, the conversion of a defiant woman may not be possible: it is not always feasible to force someone to utter the shahada. According to a tradition transmitted on the authority of Hasan al-Basrı, the Muslims used various devices to attain their objective: they turned the Zoroastrian slave-girl toward the Kaaba, ordered her to pronounce the shahada and to perform ablution. Her master then engaged in sexual relations after she had one menstruating period while in his house. Others hold that the master must teach the slave-girl to pray, to purify herself and to shave her private parts before any intercourse. The participation of the girl in this procedure is minimal, and this wording may be interpreted as a considerable lowering of the conversion requirements so that the girl becomes eligible for sexual intercourse as expeditiously as possible. Among the early traditionists, only a few were willing to go beyond this and allow sexual relations with a Zoroastrian slave-girl without insisting on at least a semblance of conversion.
— pp. 107-108
3. My text: Al-Mujahid and Safiid bin al-Musayyab say the master can still have sex with his Zoroastrian or pagan female slave even if she refuses to convert.
Source text:
Conversion to Islam is not mentioned here as a necessary condition for sexual relations. In the opinion of Mujhid, the captive girl should shave her pubic hair, trim her hair and pare her nails. Then she should perform ablution, wash her clothes, pronounce the shahada and perform a Muslim prayer. But even if she refuses to do these things, her master is still allowed to have sexual relations with her once she has had one menstrual period in his house. And Safiıd b. al-Musayyab simply says that “there is nothing wrong in a man having sexual relations with his Zoroastrian slave-girl”
— pp. 177-178
My text: But Ibn Qayyim argues that the Companions of the Prophet had sexual intercourse with Arab captives, such as the women of the Banu Mustaliq tribe, without making the sex conditional on the conversion of the women. He also asserted that no tradition required the conversion of a slave-girl before her master can have sex with her.
Source text:
Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya observes, on the other hand, that: "they (i.e., the Prophet’s companions) did not make sexual relations with Arab captives contingent on their conversion; rather they had sexual relations with them after one menstrual period. God allowed them to do this and did not make it conditional on conversion." Summing up, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya says that there is not a single tradition which makes sexual relations with female captives contingent on their conversion.
— p. 178
Mcphurphy ( talk) 07:23, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
There's a lot of other material in the material which has been changed without justification I will also post a comparison of the material I wrote with the original sources they cite. This will prove verifiability.
My text: Early sources indicate that sexual slavery of women was viewed as both a male privilege and a privilege for the victor over the defeated. Islamic legal texts state that sexual pleasure was a male privilege over women.
Source text:
The citations attributed to early authorities suggest that sexual slavery was seen as a matter of privilege; a male privilege as well as a privilege of the conqueror over a conquered people—which is demonstrated by an interest in slave ethnicities. According to contemporaneous Islamic legal writings, men had a number of privileges over women; sexual pleasure was one of them.
— Pernilla, Myrne (2019). "Slaves for Pleasure in Arabic Sex and Slave Purchase Manuals from the Tenth to the Twelfth Centuries". Journal of Global Slavery. 4: 196–225. doi:10.1163/2405836X-00402004 p. 203
My text: In Islam, it is the male's ownership of a woman's sexual organs which makes sex licit.
Source text:
Established Islamic jurisprudence therefore often describes marriage as a type of sale, with the item being purchased being a wife’s sexual organs. There are qualitative differences between the rights of a wife and a female slave, of course, and the jurists do carefully lay these out, but nevertheless, the concept of male ownership of women’s sexual parts becomes an important part of the traditional juristic understanding of what makes sex licit in Islam.
— Asifa Quraishi-Landes (15 April 2016). "A Meditation on Mahr, Modernity, and Muslim Marriage Contract Law". Feminism, Law, and Religion. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-13579-1. p. 178
My text: South Asian scholars ruled that jihad was not needed to seize non-muslims nor was it necessary to invite them to Islam before seizing them. Raiders were free to take and enslave any non-muslim.
Source text:
From this, South Asian scholars deduced that jihad was irrelevant when seizing infudels, who were "deproved of their rights of freedom without being possessed by anybody." It was unnecessary to invite infidels in the abode of war to embrace Islam before seziningtheir persons, because they were "something which is the property of no particular person and may by law become the property of a Mooslim...They are classed with inanimate beings...thus liable to be reduced to state of property, like things which were originally comon by nature.' For a raider, this entailed that 'such of the inhabitants, as have fallen into his hands, are at his absolute disposal, and may be lawfully reduced to slavery."
— William Gervase Clarence-Smith; W. G. Clarence-Smith (2006). Islam and the Abolition of Slavery. Oxford University Press. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-19-522151-0.
My text: The female slave was essentially a chattel. An owner's slave could also be inherited by an heir.
Source text:
The master could sell her or give her away as a gift. The concubine could not own property, because her master owned everything, although she could carry out a trade or business by herself. Levy described the concubine saying "She has no more right than other chattels". She could be paid compensation for an attack, which resulted in the death of a baby. Also her master could pass her on to his heir as an inheritance.
— Saad, Salma (1990). The legal and social status of women in the Hadith literature. University of Leeds, p. 245
My text: Uthman had sexual intercourse with her and she detested him.
Source text:
He gave Uthman b. Affan a slave girl named Zaynab b. Hayyan b. Amr. Uthman had intercourse with her and she detested him.
— Rizwi Faizer. The Life of Muhammad: Al-Waqidi's Kitab Al-Maghazi. 2013. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-92114-8.
My text: Uyaynah had earlier said at the Siege of Ta'if that he only came to fight for Muhammad so he could get a Thaqif girl and impregnate her. When Umar told Muhammad about Uyayna's comment, Muhammad smiled and called this "acceptable foolishness."
Source text:
He replied: "I, by God, did not come with you to fight the Thaqif, but that Muhammad captures a;-Taif so that I may take a slave-girl from the Thaqif and impregnate her and perhaps she will give birth to my son. Indeed the Thaqif are a fortunate community." Umar informed the Prophet of his words, and the Prophet smiled, and the said: "Such obedient folly."
— Rizwi Faizer. The Life of Muhammad: Al-Waqidi's Kitab Al-Maghazi. 2013. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-92114-8.p. 459
Source text:
He further states that, when Umar b. al-Khattab informed the Prophet what Uyaynah had said, he smiled and said, "[the man exhibits] an acceptable foolishness." [He is an agreeable fool].
— Tabari. The History of al-Tabari Vol. 9: The Last Years of the Prophet: The Formation of the State A.D. 630-632/A.H. 8-11. 1999. Translated by Ismail K. Poonawala. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-88706-692-4
My text: The most fortunate female captives were women like Safiyya and Juwayriah who were freed from slavery and married Muhammad. The lives of female captives depended on whether her tribe could ransom her or if her captor chose to marry her. If neither of the two happened such women suffered because their captors owned their bodies and lives. If they were unattractive the captors would keep them as servants and if they were beautiful the captors were allowed to keep them as their concubines. The captors were also allowed to sell her. Due to this some female captives committed suicide.
Source text:
These were the most fortunate captive women, who held high a position in the life of the Prophet. Therefore, it can be said that the destiny of a captive woman depended on two points: a. if her tribe was able to pay the ransom b. if she was married to her captor. Sometimes neither of these events might occur and therefore the woman suffered and was humiliated because her captor or the one who bought her, had control of both her body and her life. He might keep her as a concubine if she was beautiful and young, or might use her as a servant if she was old and ugly. He had the right to sell her to anyone who was willing to pay her price. On this account some references mentioned captives, who committed suicide
— Saad, Salma (1990). The legal and social status of women in the Hadith literature. University of Leeds, p. 248
My text: A modern scholar on Islamic legal history made an assertion that the Quran does not allow non-consensual sex between masters and female slaves. However, Kecia Ali states that this view is not found anywhere in the pre-modern Islamic legal tradition.
Source text:
A surprising assertion about consent also appears in a recent monograph by a scholar of Islamic legal history who declares in passing that the Quran forbids nonconsensual relationships between owners and their female slaves, claiming that “the master–slave relationship creates a status through which sexual relations may become licit, provided both parties consent.” She contends that “the sources” treat a master’s nonconsensual sex with his female slave as “tantamount to the crime of zina [illicit sex] and/or rape.” Though I believe in the strongest possible terms that meaningful consent is a prerequisite for ethical sexual relationships, I am at a loss to find this stance mirrored in the premodern Muslim legal tradition, which accepted and regulated slavery, including sex between male masters and their female slaves.
— Kecia Ali(2017). "Concubinage and Consent". International Journal of Media Studies. 49. doi:10.1017/S0020743816001203
My text: Furthermore, the majority of modern Muslims are not aware that Islamic jurists had made an analogy between the marriage contract and sale of concubines and many modern Muslims would be offended by the idea that a husband owns his wife's private parts under Islamic law.
Source text:
Most Muslims today either are not aware, or do not like to emphasize, the theoretical presumptions embedded in the Islamic jurisprudence of marriage law because they are quite far from contemporary sensibilities. Established Islamic marriage contract law uses the contract of sale as its basic conceptual framework—a model which leads to some uncomfortable conclusions about what is being sold and the role of women’s agency in that sale. Even more out of step with modernity is a historical context in which slavery and concubinage were socially acceptable. Because of their presumption that a man may legally have sex with his female slave, classical Muslim jurists draw an analogy between a marriage contract and a contract for sale of a concubine, using this analogy to work out the doctrinal details of the respective rights (sexual and otherwise) of a husband and wife.
— Asifa Quraishi-Landes (15 April 2016). "A Meditation on Mahr, Modernity, and Muslim Marriage Contract Law". Feminism, Law, and Religion. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-13579-1. p. 178
Source text:
Polygamy is tolerated in some Muslim circles, but the idea of male ownership of a wife’s sexual parts in marriage would strike most contemporary Muslims as inappropriate and probably offensive to a healthy sexual relationship
— Asifa Quraishi-Landes (15 April 2016). "A Meditation on Mahr, Modernity, and Muslim Marriage Contract Law". Feminism, Law, and Religion. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-13579-1. p. 1782
In Islam, it is the male's ownership of a woman's sexual organs which makes sex licit.
Although equality is a contested concept, Muslims around the world nevertheless speak of marriage in terms of reciprocal complementary rights and duties, mutual consent, and with respect for women's agency. Polygamy is tolerated in some Muslim circles, but the idea of male ownership of a wife's sexual parts in marriage would strike most contemporary Muslims as inappropriate and probably offensive to a healthy relationship.
@ Vice regent: 1. The views of 1.6 billon (lay) Muslims are not a criterion in either Islamic jurisprudence or Wikipedia. Besides their views were already represented in the "Modern Muslim views" section. So the WP:FRINGE argument does not apply.
My own reading of the relevant Quranic texts has always led me to a different conclusion than that held by the majority of classical Muslim jurists.Note the word "majority" here. We can't make a WP:FALSEBALANCE between majority and minority viewpoints.
Theorizing about what could be the commonality between these two situations, these jurists come to the conclusion that some sort of male ownership (the Arabic term is “milk,” meaning control or dominion) is instrumental in legitimizing sexual activity. As Kecia Ali explains in her detailed study of the subject, “a comparison [i]s drawn between the dominion imposed by a husband through which his wife is caused to surrender her sexual self and the sovereignty established by the master [over his slave]” (Ali 2010: 15). Established Islamic jurisprudence therefore often describes marriage as a type of sale, with the item being purchased being a wife’s sexual organs. There are qualitative differences between the rights of a wife and a female slave, of course, and the jurists do carefully lay these out, but nevertheless, the concept of male ownership of women’s sexual parts becomes an important part of the traditional juristic understanding of what makes sex licit in Islam.
Mcphurphy ( talk) 05:48, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
The article currently says:
Concubinage was not a common practice among the civilizations which the early Muslims had conquered and it was condemned wherever it existed.
The author does say it was condemned by Christians in the Byzantine empire. But I could not find the exact text of "condemned wherever it existed". Especially, since the author also points that concubinage was allowed by the Mazdean faith in Persia, and as practiced in the Sassanian Empire. What is the source for this? VR talk 08:47, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
The Jewish position on the subject is particularly difficult to ascertain; although concubinage appears in Biblical texts, it seems to have fallen out of favour a long time before the birth of Muhammad and is rarely mentioned. We can only say that in later peiods Jewish legal authorities under Islamic rule prohibited Jews from sexual intercourse with their slave women on pain of death...Despite this small caveat, there is still no way we can equate derivations of the Roman practice of concubinatus as it existed in the seventh century Christian Near East with concubinage as practised by Muslims- and it is safe to say that the Christians utterly condemned Islamic behaviour in this regard...So with the taking of concubines, and the full acceptance of their offspring, the Muslims did something that contrasted with the prevailing norms of every major Near-Eastern religious practice of the conquest era-including that of the pre-Islamic Hijaz. By allowing unlimited concubinage they were overturining the Roman understanding of it being a monogamous institution, and by allowing it at all they were in conflict with Jewish and Christian law. Even in the only religious system that did allow concubinage in something approaching the Islamic sense - the Mazdaean- there were important discreprancies.
This plain stupid. Stop monopolizing the article, this is not your personal wikipedia section. Firman.Nst ( talk) 02:16, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
The topic of this article is Concubinage in Islam, not List of rapes committed by Muslims. So we can't just list every horrific rape committed by Muslims in this article, like happened here. The source doesn't mention Islam or anything about Islam. Yes it is true that Muslims have committed rapes (and Muslim women were raped during the same time), but that doesn't belong in this article.
The entire section should be removed. For now I've only reverted the new edits to it, and not removed the previous material, to give time for some discussion first. VR talk 16:27, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Usually, rape and sexual assault were invariably followed by abduction of the victimised women. These abducted women typically became domestic servants and sex slaves. Many abducted women were sold into prostitution and some, in very rare instances, were married to their abductors and later claimed to be leading happy and respectable lives
— Arunima Dey, Violence Against Women During the Partition of India: Interpreting Women and their Bodies in the Context of Ethnic Genocide, pg. 109 [1]
Armed Pathans, operating in bands, were perhaps the worst offenders in West Punjab, especially in the districts of the Rawalpindi division (where they were concentrated), for it was they who systematically preyed upon the refugee trains and convoys, carrying off women to be sold for as little as Rs10 or 20 to Muslim men. Non-Muslim women from Kashmir also were offered for sale in West Punjab, ending up as 'slave girls' in factories. A report from Sargodha district claimed,The Pathans brought a very large number of abducted women and children from the Kashmir front and they had been selling these like cattle and chattel. There were cases in which a woman had been sold thrice or four times. The Pathans had made this a regular trade.
— Andrew Major, ‘The chief sufferers’: Abduction of women during the partition of the Punjab, pg. 62 [2]
"They shot everyone who couldn't recite the kalima - the Arabic-language Muslim declaration of faith. Many non-Muslim women were enslaved, while many others jumped in the river to escape capture."..."They had returned with war booty," he says. "Some had brought cattle, some horses. Most of them had brought arms, and many brought women. One Afridi tribesman walked back with two women in tow. They wept incessantly and just wouldn't stop.""
— BBC [3]
The Punjabi Sikh and Hindu girls and Kashmiri women are proverbially beautiful, so they were in great demand in the Muslim countries of Africa and the Middle East. They were sold there by the barbarian Muslim kidnappers for very high prices. These ill fated women were confined in their purchasers' harems and bound to accept concubinage
— Amal Kumar Chattopadhyay, Slavery in India, pg. 129
Many Pandits and Sikhs in Kashmir shared a parallel fate as the Yazidi shortly after the partition of India and Pakistan in October 1947. Aided by Pakistani army regulars, Islamist tribesmen descended into the Kashmir valley killing hundreds of Hindu and Sikh men, forcibly converted thousands while raping and taking the women as sex slaves back to Pakistan.
— HuffPost, "How Genocide Brought Together Two Unlikely Communities: The Yazidi & the Hindus" [4]
Mcphurphy said
Any instance of Muslims practising sexual slavery belongs in this article.
That's not the name of this article. Do you wish to start another article with the name List of rapes committed by Muslims? There is a big disconnect between what Islam says about concubinage and the rapes some Muslims have committed in history. VR talk 14:02, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
References
the issue of abducted women was so widespread that the governments of India and Pakistan established the Inter-Dominion Agreement on November 1947 for the recovery of abducted women from both sides of the border. To begin with, 9,000 women were recovered from India and over 5,500 from Pakistan during the first year of the Recovery Act. By December 1949, the numbers had risen to 12,500 Muslim women recovered from India and over 6,200 Hindu and Sikh women from Pakistan.
"many Muslim slave-owners, on the eve of their death, liked to release their slaves from bondage. They did so in accordance with the teachings of their Prophet Muhammed, who had always taught his disciples not to own slaves. Muhammed, further, laid down that the soul of any master, who would release at least one of his slaves before he dies, would go to Behasta (heaven), and God himself would receive him there He asked his followers to treat the captive slaves generously. Moreover, the Koran never admitted slavery as a recognised institution. And the Muslim slave- owners of India generally treated their slaves generously and leniently throughout the Muslim rule." (pg 28 'Slavery in India”)
Mcphurphy ( talk) 11:56, 30 June 2020 (UTC)In this nefarious design, the Pakistan Government made an internal secret agreement called “Zen and Zar “with the Pathan mercenaries according to which if Mirpur city was captured, the captured women would be taken by the Pathans and the immovable property would be the share of Pakistan Government.
— C P Gupta, Fall of Mirpur, The Daily Excelsior [1]
No one could predict how long this sold-off woman would remain there. These poor women were housed by the government in the Kunja camp as there was fighting going on in Kashmir. The army handed them over to us when they were useless...All 600 had been used by the Pakistani army...Pakistan's attitude was that it should be thankful that it had managed to recover so many women. Naturally, they would not admit that they had any hand in the situation the women found themselves in.
— Borders and Boundaries [2]
One Muslim member of the Legislative Assembly was said to have five hundred girls in his possession in West Punjab, while an abducted Muslim girl from a well-known family was reported to be with the Maharaja of Patiala. In West Punjab police officials, members of the Muslim League and landed magnates were involved [3]The Muslim League was the ruling party of Pakistan at the time. I can also show you sources which say that the Pakistani Prime Minister ordered attacks on Hindu trains after which Hindu girls were "distributed" among Muslims. The book "Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947" also documents the role of the Pakistani state in the partition violence. Pakistani scholars such as Ishtiaq Ahmed have corroborated that book's statements and say its claims can be independently verified. Admittedly there was some state involvement on the Indian side too[vhttps://scroll.in/article/813521/did-sardar-patel-order-the-eviction-of-muslims-from-delhi-villages], but those were mainly Sikh princely states. [33] In almost every account given in the book Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947 there are details of the Pakistani military involvement in the killing of Hindus and Sikhs and taking of their women. You are also standing on thing ground by claiming this has nothing to do with Islam. "Jihad" was proclaimed against minorities and maulvis forcibly converted people to Islam. [34] Here is what is said in Chapter 4 of Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947:
"Later they were distributed among the Muslims to be kept as concubines or were forcibly married."Clearly, this is part of historical Muslim practice of concubinage. [35]. Mcphurphy ( talk) 04:31, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Mcphurphy, we were discussing changes on this article a few weeks ago. Then you disappeared for a month (the last comments were mine and you never responded to them). Now you come back out of the blue and start reverting and make other changes without even discussing? Many of your recent changes also have spelling errors. I'm reverting these changes for now. Please continue the discussion. Please don't disturb the status-quo without discussing first. VR talk 16:27, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
They have to get consensus for every sourced sentence they want to remove.
The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.
A prophetic hadith permitted corporal punishment and Ibn al-Jawzi stated that both slaves and wives should put up with physical mistreatment.But the source also says this in the same paragraph that Mcphurphy omitted:
Islamic law strictly prohibited the molestation of dependants, but subordination in the protected sphere of the household made it hard to police transgressions
Any instance of Muslims practising sexual slavery belongs in this article. We simply can't allow this article to become "List of rapes committed by Muslims".
Mcphurphy ( talk) 22:55, 28 June 2020 (UTC)It is clear that, although there are some reports of concubines producing children for the men from before Muammad's generation, they are infrequent and found solely in the generations of his father and grandfather. Like the absence of concubinage in earlier generations, this finding concurs with the traditional narrative sources; concubinage was uncommon in pre-Islamic Arabian society, but this changed for the men of Muhammad's generation as a consequence of military conquests.
— Majied Robinson, Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History, pg.17
A more general objection I have to the lead is that it's using the word "Islam" in an essentializing way. The word is notoriously polysemous and we should be careful about sweeping statements about what "Islam" does or doesn't do. The article scope is clearly about "Islam" in the broadest sense of Islamic civilization. So, I would suggest the lead and the rest of the article take a more historicizing perspective. Sexual exploitation of slaves and other dependents existed in all pre-modern civilizations. Islam is unusual in the Late Antique context in that sexual slavery was legally recognized and regulated, which arguably made the phenomenon more widespread and also in some ways improved the lot of the victims. The lead makes it seem like "Islam" was what caused sexual slavery to exist. I think the lead and the rest of the article would be much improved if it started with a descriptive statement to indicate that sexual slavery was widespread in Islamic civilization, and then build up from civilizational context, via scriptural sources, to classical jurisprudence and then pre-modern history and modern transformations.
I think that starting the article with a discussion of jurisprudence is anachronistic.
(
←) The above is yet another example of Mcphurphy misquoting the sources. He claims that this text: "concubinage was uncommon in pre-Islamic Arabian society, but this changed for the men of Muhammad's generation as a consequence of military conquests."
implies concubinage came from the prophetic practice. Yet, just because something happens in someone's generation doesn't mean they caused it. The text clearly says it happened as a "consequence" (meaning after) the conquests and we know that happened under the Rashidun and Umayyads (after Muhammad's death). "Muhammad's generation" can most certainly apply to the founder of the Umayyad dynasty,
Muawiya. In fact Robinson directly says the opposite of what Mcphurphy wants him to say over
here:
Having exhausted the possibility that the behavior was borrowed we will turn to another seemingly obvious source of chance in marriage behavior - the Quran and Prophetic practice. Here too we will find no obvious parallels between revelation and normatic Islamic concubinage. Instead, it will be suggested that the emergence of was a result of the unique set of circumstances faced by the Muslims of the Umayyad era....
Despite this Mcphuphy
insists Robinson clearly attributes it to the prophetic practice
.
VR
talk
14:17, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
That explanation does seem to clear up the seeming contradictions in Robinson's work that Mcmurphy clings to. Its also quite clearly what he means to say. It's also rather hard to categorize these generations considering Muhammad had uncles his own age or even younger than him. Muwaviya could certainly be included amongst them as could (and in fact is) Ali. 39.37.181.243 ( talk) 15:30, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
"Despite this, according to the narrative suggested by the trends in the nasab data, the Arabs took concubines in large numbers as soon as the conquest began."Mcphurphy ( talk) 10:47, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
"Concubines were still uncommon amongst Muslims of the Prophetic era; this is supported by the near-complete absence of unambiguous references to the institution in the Qur'an and recorded Prophetic practice. Despite this, according to the narrative suggested by the trends in the nasab data, the Arabs took concubines in large numbers as soon as the conquest began."
Mcphurphy ( talk) 13:43, 30 June 2020 (UTC)Like the absence of concubinage in earlier generations, this finding concurs with the traditional narrative sources; concubinage was uncommon in pre-Islamic Arabian society, but this changed for the men of Muhammad's era as a consequence of military conquests.
Mcphurphy ( talk) 03:30, 1 July 2020 (UTC)A study of the Arab genealogical text Nasab Quraysh records the maternity of 3,000 Quraishi tribesmen, most of whom lived in between 500 and 750 CE. [4] The data shows that there was a massive increase in the number of children born to concubines with the emergence of Islam. [4] An analysis of the information found that no children were born from concubines before the generation of Muhammad's grandfather. [5] There were a few cases of children being born from concubines before Muhammad but they were only in his father's and grandfather's generation. The analysis of the data thus showed that concubinage was not common before the time of Muhammad, but increased for men of his generation as a result of military conquests. [6] Due to these conquests, a large number of female slaves were available to the conquerors. Although there were more births, the attitude towards children born from slaves still remained negative. [7] Some early Arab Muslims discriminated against those people who were born fron non-Arab female slaves. However, there is no indication that these attitudes were ever acted upon. [8]
"the Arabs took concubines in large numbers as soon as the conquests began."When did these conquests begin you suppose?
Despite the increasing numbers of children, attitudes towards concubine unions and their progeny remained largely negative.
— Majied Robinson, Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History, pg. 12
Mcphurphy ( talk) 06:52, 1 July 2020 (UTC)None of this should be taken as a denial that, among the early Arab Muslims, there were some who denigrated those with non-Arab slave mothers. This is certainly true, and the earlier scholarship has done a credible job of marshaling the supporting evidence. But, this is not enough to prove these prejudices were ever acted on seriously or held by a critical mass of Muslims."
— Majied Robinson, Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History, pgs. 20-21
( ←) We can add all three of Robinson's claims: 1) that concubinage expansion was not related to Prophetic practice nor the Quran, 2) it was related to Umayyad desire to have more sons, 3) it expanded when the conquests began. VR talk 10:04, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
The article was moved from "Sexual slavery in Islam" to "Concubinage in Islam". At that point the move was agreed to by all except Mcphurphy. Or at least, no one but Mcphurphy objected to the title change.
Now the title is being changed without any sort of discussion let alone consensus. Please seek consensus before changing the title of the article. VR talk 11:43, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Repeatedly removing sourced content without explanation even after being shown that its verifiable is just POV pushing. Vishnu Sahib ( talk) 03:41, 30 June 2020 (UTC)Muhammad gave a girl called Zaynab bint Hayyan to Uthman ibn Affan. Uthman had sexual intercourse with her and she detested him.
I would disagree concubinage is more accurate and acceptable in academia while “sex slavery” is not even in Islam the term used for such women is Surriya (concubine) not sex slave. CircassianBilyal ( talk) 15:29, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
Lets consider what famous concubines in Islamic history are called by reliable sources: "concubine" or "sex slave"/"sexual slave"?
I could probably go on. "Concubine" seems to be the normative term for women we seem to be describing here. VR talk 09:01, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
academic sources which are obviously about Islamic sexual slavery like "Slavery and sexual ethics in Islam". That chapter is from a book that uses the term "concubinage" on 24 pages, and the term "concubine" on 25 pages. It uses "sexual slavery" one only one page, and not in connection with Islam.
Mcphurphy What was contentious and undue about this edit? The section is about modern Muslim attitudes. Imam Zaid is a modern scholar. This content fits in that section. Dr Silverstein ( talk) 08:52, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
@
Dr Silverstein the statement that you added was very subjective as if Imam Zaid Shakir speaks for the entire entire modern Muslim community. It is a very well established fact that sexual relationships with females slaves or captives of war are allowed all mainstream Muslim schools of jurisprudence. You can't simply pick views of any random Imam and pretend as if he speaks for the Muslim community who aren't ISIS members.
Balolay (
talk)
11:14, 16 July 2020 (UTC)banned user
Muhammad having sex with his slave is not directly mentioned in the Article. It is only indirectly referenced in the line Muhammad and his Companions took for granted the allowance of having sex with female war captives.
I understand that Primary sources are not to be quoted directly without proper context and reference . But, Islamic legal sanction comes directly from words of Allah and actions of Muhammad, hence, I think it is quite relevant to quote it here. Inviting further comments from other editors and specifically @ Mcphurphy who has done most of the recent additions. Dhawangupta ( talk) 22:04, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
The article currently says Umar prohibited slave girls from resembling free women and forbade them from covering their hair
. The source given is
Khaled Abou El Fadl (1 October 2014). Speaking in God's Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women page 198. I looked at that page and couldn't find the quote. Please provide the full quote.
VR
talk
00:44, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
"In fact, it is reported that Umar b. al-Khattab prohibited slave-girls from imitating free women by covering their hair."Mcphurphy ( talk) 01:46, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
page 525 VR talk 21:18, 14 July 2020 (UTC)Some of the late jurists argued that if a slave-girl will cause a fitnah she must cover her breasts or hair. Al-Hattab relates that although a slave womans ‘awrah is the same as a man’s, some have said that it is reprehensible for someone who is not her owner to view what is under her garments, or to view her breasts, chest, or whatever else “leads to fitnah”. Consequently, despite having the same ‘awrah as men, it is preferred that she bare her head but cover her body. Al-Bahuti relates views suggesting that as a matter of caution, it is preferrable that the slave-girl cover herself in the same fashion as an adult free woman, including covering her head during prayer.
The article says The Hanafis allowed potential male buyers to uncover and touch a female slave's arms, breasts and legs
. Please provide the source quote for this. I'm asking because it directly contradicts a reliable source:
Ibn Abidin also argues that most of the scholars of the Ḥanafi school do not permit a slave woman to have her breasts, chest, or back exposed; however it is said that a slave woman’s chest is part of her awrah only in prayer but not otherwise. Nevertheless, Ibn Abidin finds this latter view unconvincing." Khaled Abou El Fadl (1 October 2014). Speaking in God's Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women, page 525
In any case, WP:NPOV requires the above content I provided to also be included and the content to be rewritten with attribution. VR talk 00:48, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
"The women’s bodies were examined before the purchase and Hanafi jurists permitted male potential buyers of a female slave to “uncover her legs, her arms, her breast (ṣadr), and to touch her carefully.”I am okay with you adding your material provided that you do not remove pre-existing content. Also be careful not to break text flow. So show me here please what you want to include into the article before you add it. Mcphurphy ( talk) 01:53, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
There has been a debate and even a move war as to whether this article should continue to be called "Concubinage in Islam" or be moved to "Sexual slavery in Islam". Below I will present reasons for keeping the name "Concubinage in Islam":
In all the sections below (except "general discussion") please keep comments directly related to the evidence I provided, for example, if I accidentally misquoted something. Any comments not directly related to the evidence I provided should go in "General discussion". VR talk 20:24, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
"Concubinage" and its variants are used far more often than "sexual slavery" and its variants in the most commonly used sources in this article. I went through more than a dozen and compiled my results below.
# occurrences of "concubine" and "concubinage" | # occurrences of "sexual slave", "sexual slavery", "sex slave" and "sex slavery" | Comments | |
---|---|---|---|
Kecia Ali (2010), Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam | More than 100 | None | |
W. G. Clarence-Smith (2006). Islam and the Abolition of Slavery | More than 100 | None | A whole subchapter is named "Concubines and eunuchs" |
Kecia Ali (2017). "Concubinage and Consent" | 11 | None | The article's title itself contains the term "concubinage" |
Friedmann, Yohanan (2003). Tolerance and Coercion in Islam : Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition | 8 | None | |
Kecia Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur'an, Hadith and Jurisprudence | More than 50 | 1 | |
Toledano et al. A Global History of Anti-Slavery Politics in the Nineteenth Century | 3 | None | All three concubine references are in connection to the Ottoman Empire |
Seedat, Fatima (2016). "Sexual economies of war and sexual technologies of the body: Militarised Muslim masculinity and the Islamist production of concubines for the caliphate" | More than 40 | 3 | The article has "concubines" in the title itself. Also, one of the three "sexual slavery" references is to Guatemala which has nothing to do with Islam. |
Bernard Lewis (1992). Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry | More than 30 | None | |
Matthew S. Gordon et al (2017). Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History | More than 11 | 3 | The name of the book contains "Concubine" and titles of chapters 1, 8 and 13 all contain "concubinage" or "concubines" |
Avril A. Powell, "Indian Muslim modernists and the issue of slavery in Islam" in Slavery and South Asian History | More than 15 | None | More than 15 references to "concubinage" in the chapter on "Indian Muslim modernists and the issue of slavery in Islam" alone. Many more references to concubinage in connection with Islam in the rest of the book. |
Majied, Robinson. Marriage in the Tribe of Muhammad: A Statistical Study of Early Arabic Genealogical Literature | More than 10 | None | |
Y. Erdem (1996). Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and its Demise 1800-1909 | 5 | None | |
Janet Afary (2009). Sexual Politics in Modern Iran | More than 100 | 1 | Also has a subchapter named "Slave concubinage, temporary marriage, and harem wives" |
Chouki El Hamel (2013). Black Morocco: A History of Slavery, Race, and Islam | More than 100 | None | First chapter is called "The Notion of Slavery and the Justification of Concubinage as an Institution of Slavery in Islam" |
VR talk 20:24, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
Quotes from reliable sources that use the term "concubine"
|
---|
"Concubine" is the term used by reliable sources to describe the concepts covered in this article. For example, one major topic covered here is umm al-walad. Women designated as umm al-walad are commonly described as concubines:
Besides that, women who are the subject of this article are called "concubine" not "sexual slave".
|
VR talk 20:24, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
As mentioned above, many of the sources that use the term "sexual slavery" with respect to Muhammad's concubines tend to be anti-Islam. It is telling that when I asked Mcphurphy to provide sources that use the term "sexual slavery" with respect to Islam, Mcphurphy pointed out to this article: Islam and modern-day sexual slavery. The publisher of that article is a right wing magazine known for spreading hoaxes ( Quadrant_(magazine)#Hoax), and the author of that article, Victoria Kincaid, writes "It is no secret that Islam is the most misogynistic institution in the world".
The term "sexual slavery" is commonly used by reliable sources to describe atrocities committed by ISIL/ISIS. However, this article is about Islam the religion, not "Islamic state" the terrorist group, and it very POV to try and conflate Islam with ISIS. VR talk 20:24, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
WP:COMMONNAME points out that google search results "are subject to certain biases and technical limitations", so we should not give much weight to them (especially in light of all the evidence I provided above). Nevertheless, google results also favor the term "concubinage" over "sexual slavery".
Google search results and methodology
|
---|
Google scholar gives the following results:
|
VR talk 20:24, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
I am a bit busy so don't have enough time these days to take a detailed look. But a brief survey shows a very unconvincing collection of data premised on endless hair-splitting. Concubinage is an example of WP:PEACOCK. The fact that sexual slavery is the WP:COMMONNAME has been pointed out by multiple editors multiple times in discussions above. They don't need repetition in a new section of WP:TEXTWALL. Mcphurphy ( talk) 08:26, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
Sexual slavery in Islam is the more commonly used term on Google scholar and Google search so its to be considered the WP:COMMONNAME.
The term "concubinage in Islam" is an apologetic euphemism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.174.207.74 ( talk) 10:59, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
-- Grufo ( talk) 13:30, 10 August 2020 (UTC)Household slavery was common. Slaveholding, in practice everywhere, included sexual use of enslaved women and sometimes men.
A very misleading and deceptive name! It should be changed to Sexual Slavery! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.255.6.100 ( talk) 09:51, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
There is no real dispute here in academia.-- Karaeng Matoaya ( talk) 16:31, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
@
CambridgeBayWeather: The dispute has ended and we are very far from any consensus about the disputed renaming. Many editors have explictly opposed the new title “Concubinage in Islam”. Among these:
Mcphurphy (many interventions),
Vishnu Sahib (see for example
this comment),
Bolanigak (see for example
this comment),
Dr Silverstein (see for example
this edit),
Dhawangupta (see for example
this comment),
Firman.Nst (see for example
this comment),
Grufo (myself) – I have left out the anonymous IP addresses that have defended both sides and I apologize if I have forgotten to mention anyone else among those who have opposed the new title. What should we do? --
Grufo (
talk)
04:16, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
Wait you're mistaken I support the change to Concubinage in Islam. Firman.Nst ( talk) 07:00, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
Other pre-modern societies can have mixed regulations, where concubines might be both slaves and free women, and where it might be justifiable to focus on the extra-marital status of the relationship rather than the fluid social status of the person involved.Concubines in the Ancient Near East appear to have been at least predominantly enslaved—some sources explicitly distinguish between a "free woman" and a "concubine"—yet they are consistently referred to as "concubines" in specialist sources, e.g. Women in the Ancient Near East. I think you're making assumptions based on the idea that "concubine" is analogous to "lover" unqualified, which again doesn't hold up in a historical context.-- Karaeng Matoaya ( talk) 01:59, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
The page is move protected for almost a year, 1 July 2021. You should look at Wikipedia:Requested moves/Controversial and use that to bring in more editors to comment. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 22:01, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
Concubinage and sexual slavery have different historical contexts. Ideally both deserve separate articles on their own. This was the case until the articles were merged in a haste. However, in the current scenario, sexual slavery in Islam seems to be the right name.
Mingling2 (
talk) 14:15, 25 August 2020 (UTC)Sockpuppet of indef blocked user who has tried to comment on this page many times. See
Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mingling2.
VR
talk
22:42, 25 August 2020 (UTC)