Islamist Calls for Slavery's Legalization

Most Islamists prefer to avoid the subject of slavery, which is explicitly permitted in the Koran, but Salafis endorse this practice. Ali Al-Ahmed of the dissident Saudi Information Agency reports today that a prominent Saudi religious authority recently called for slavery to be re-legalized in the kingdom. Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan, the author of a religious textbook (At-Tawhid, "Monotheism") widely used to teach Saudi high school students as well as their counterparts abroad studying in Saudi schools (including those in the West), announced in a recent lecture that "Slavery is a part of Islam. Slavery is part of jihad, and jihad will remain as long there is Islam." He argued against the idea that slavery had ever been abolished, insulting those who espouse this view as "ignorant, not scholars. They are merely writers. Whoever says such things is an infidel."

Al-Fawzan is no maverick. He is:

• A member of the Senior Council of Clerics, Saudi Arabia's highest religious body;
• A member of the Council of Religious Edicts and Research;
• Imam of the Prince Mitaeb Mosque in Riyadh; and
• Professor at Imam Mohamed Bin Saud Islamic University, the main Wahhabi center of learning.

That such a viewpoint can be asserted by a card-carrying member of the Saudi religious establishment offers a tragic commentary on the state of Islamic discourse today. (November 7, 2003)

May 18, 2010 update: More pro-slavery nonsense coming out of the Muslim world, this time Egypt and the use of slaves as soldiers: for details, see my weblog entry, "Praising Military Slavery."

Abu Ishaq al-Huwaini (also spelled Abo Ishaq Alheweny) dreams of buying kafir slave girls.

May 31, 2011 update: An Egyptian sheikh, Abu Ishaq al-Huwaini (also spelled Abo Ishaq Alheweny) wants to apply the Shar'i code of spoils of war, including the taking of slaves. Raymond Ibrahim explains in "Raped and Ransacked in the Muslim World":

According to Huwaini, after Muslims invade and conquer a non-Muslim nation—in the course of waging an offensive jihad—the properties and persons of those infidels who refuse to convert or pay jizya and live as subjugated dhimmis, are to be seized as ghanima or "spoils of war." … Huwaini said that infidel captives, the "spoils of war," are to be distributed among the Muslim combatants (i.e., jihadists) and taken to "the slave market, where slave-girls and concubines are sold."

He referred to these latter by their dehumanizing name in the Koran, ma malakat aymanukum—"what your right hands possess"—in this context, sex-slaves: "You go to the market and buy her, and she becomes like your legal mate—though without a contract, a guardian, or any of that stuff—and this is agreed upon by the ulema." "In other words," Huwaini concluded, "when I want a sex-slave, I go to the market and pick whichever female I desire and buy her."

Comment: When asked about the essence of the Shari'a, I mention three key elements: Muslim superiority over non-Muslims, male superiority over females, and the legitimacy of violence to extend Islam's sway. Huwaini's "I go to the market and pick whichever female I desire and buy her" vividly and memorably illustrates all three elements. June 11, 2011 update: The website TranslatingJihad.com provides a condensed transcript of this statement at "Video: Shaykh al-Huwayni: 'When I want a sex slave, I just go to the market and choose the woman I like and purchase her'."

June 6, 2011 update: Another endorsement of sex slavery, this time from a female. Raymond Ibrahim tells the story of Salwa al-Mutairi, a Kuwaiti former parliamentary candidate, who seeks to "revive the institution of sex-slavery." She

begins by insisting that "it's of course true" that "the prophet of Islam legitimized sex-slavery." She recounts how when she was in Mecca, Islam's holiest city, she asked various sheikhs and muftis (learned, authoritative Muslims) about the legality of sex-slavery according to Sharia: they all confirmed it to be perfectly legal; Kuwaiti ulema further pointed out that extra "virile" men—Western synonymous include "sex-crazed," "lecherous," "perverted"—would do well to purchase sex-slaves to sate their appetites without sinning.

Ibrahim quotes a portion of her taped speech on rules governing sex-slaves who must be at least 15 years-old:

A Muslim state must [first] attack a Christian state—sorry, I mean any non-Muslim state—and they [the women, the future sex-slaves] must be captives of the raid. Is this forbidden? Not at all; according to Islam, sex slaves are not at all forbidden. Quite the contrary, the rules regulating sex-slaves differ from those for free women [i.e., Muslim women]: the latter's body must be covered entirely, except for her face and hands, whereas the sex-slave is kept naked from the bellybutton on up—she is different from the free woman; the free woman has to be married properly to her husband, but the sex-slave—he just buys her and that's that.

Mutairi then gives an example from the war in Chechnya: "Surely there are female Russian captives. So go and buy those and sell them here in Kuwait; better that than have our men engage in forbidden sexual relations. I don't see any problem in this, no problem at all." She invokes Harun ar-Rashid, the Abbasid caliph, as an exemplar of male virtue: "The greatest example we have is Harun al-Rashid: when he died, he had 2,000 sex slaves—so it's okay, nothing wrong with it." Mutairi concludes with a supplication to God: "Oh I truly wish this for Kuwait, Allah willing—Oh Lord, Lord, you are bountiful." June 22, 2011 update: More on this subject can be found here.

July 5, 2012 update: Raymond Ibrahim returns to this topic at "Egypt's Sex-Slave Marriage," where he tells about the country's "first sex-slave marriage" having been contracted within days after the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi becoming president. It involves a man, one Abd al-Rauf Awn, publicly "marrying" his "slave." See Ibrahim's piece for the details.

Related Topics:  Islam, Saudi Arabia, Slavery receive the latest by email: subscribe to daniel pipes' free mailing list This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.