Not Peace but a Sword: The Great Chasm Between Christianity and Islam (19 page)

And that is not all, by any means.

Concubinage and sexual slavery

The Qur’an forbids Muslim men to have sexual relations with “wedded women, save what your right hands own” (4:4; see also 23:1-6). Those whom their “right hands own” are slaves; since the Qur’an takes slavery for granted, it is still part of Islamic law. There has never been an abolitionist movement within Islam, for the fundamental principle of the Christian abolitionist movement, the equal dignity of all people before God, does not exist in Islam.

Slavery is rooted in the Qur’an, which matter-of-factly allows a man four wives, plus an unspecified number of sex slaves, women captured in the course of battle with non-Muslims: “O Prophet, We have made lawful for thee thy wives whom thou hast given their wages and what thy right hand owns, spoils of war that God has given thee” (33:50). Muhammad, the supreme example for Muslims, was a slave owner.

Of course the Bible, too, takes slavery for granted. But biblical justifications for slavery—the application of the curse of Ham to the Negro race was especially popular in the antebellum American South—were never understood among Christians to be as universal or strong as Muslim scholars have understood those in the Qur’an to be. Despite the Bible’s seeming acceptance of slavery, the early Church and medieval Church actively opposed it, and in modern times abolitionist movements arose among Christians in England and America because of the Christian idea of the universal dignity of the human person.

In Islam, by contrast, no abolitionist movement has ever arisen. Muhammad’s exemplary status precludes it, as does the sharp and all-pervasive dichotomy between believers and unbelievers. The enslaving of unbelievers is not considered to be a violation of their human dignity; after all, the Qur’an mandates that they offer “willing submission” to the Muslims, and “feel themselves subdued” (9:29).

And even when the slaves are Muslims, the practice continues. Slavery is still practiced more or less openly today in Sudan and Mauritania, and there is evidence that it continues beneath the surface in some majority-Muslim countries as well—notably Saudi Arabia, which only abolished slavery in 1962; Yemen and Oman, both of which ended legal slavery in 1970; and Niger, which didn’t abolish slavery until 2004. In Niger, the ban is widely ignored, and according to a Nigerian study, as many as one million people remain in bondage there.
¹⁷⁶
These bans have been imposed by Western pressure; they have not arisen from an abolitionist movement within Islam.

Inextricable from the concept of Islamic slavery as a whole is sex slavery, which is rooted in Islam’s devaluation of the lives of non-Muslims. The Qur’an’s stipulation that a man may take four wives as well as hold slave girls as sex slaves has been taken in Islamic law to refer to women captured in wartime, who are considered the spoils of war. Here again, Islam avoids the appearance of impropriety, declaring that the taking of married women as sex slaves does not constitute adultery, for their marriages are ended at the moment of their capture. A manual of Islamic law directs: “When a child or a woman is taken captive, they become slaves by the fact of capture, and the woman’s previous marriage is immediately annulled.”
¹⁷⁷

This is by no means an eccentric or outdated view in Islam. The Salafist Egyptian Sheikh Abu-Ishaq al-Huwayni declared in May 2011 that “we are in the era of jihad” and that “if we could conduct one, two, or three jihadist operations every year, many people throughout the earth would become Muslims.” And those who rejected the invitation to convert to Islam (
da
’
wa
) would be enslaved:

And whoever rejected this
da
’
wa
, or stood in our way, we would fight against him and take him prisoner, and confiscate his wealth, his children, and his women—all of this means money. Every
mujahid
who returned from jihad, his pockets would be full. He would return with three or four slaves, three or four women, and three or four children. Multiply each head by 300
dirhams
, or 300
dinar
, and you have a good amount of profit. If he were to go to the West and work on a commercial deal, he would not make that much money. Whenever things became difficult (financially), he could take the head (i.e., the prisoner) and sell it, and ease his (financial) crisis. He would sell it like groceries.
¹⁷⁸

After his words touched off a furor, he clarified what he meant in a subsequent interview:

Jihad is only between Muslims and infidels. . . . Do you understand what I’m saying? Spoils, slaves, and prisoners are only to be taken in war between Muslims and infidels. Muslims in the past conquered, invaded, and took over countries. This is agreed to by all scholars—there is no disagreement on this from any of them, from the smallest to the largest, on the issue of taking spoils and prisoners. The prisoners and spoils are distributed among the fighters, which includes men, women, children, wealth, and so on.

When a slave market is erected, which is a market in which are sold slaves and sex-slaves, which are called in the Qur’an by the name
milk al-yamin
, “that which your right hands possess” [Qur’an 4:24]. This is a verse from the Qur’an which is still in force, and has not been abrogated. The
milk al-yamin
are the sex-slaves. You go to the market, look at the sex-slave, and buy her. She becomes like your wife, (but) she doesn’t need a (marriage) contract or a divorce like a free woman, nor does she need a
wali
. All scholars agree on this point—there is no disagreement from any of them. [. . .] When I want a sex slave, I just go to the market and choose the woman I like and purchase her.
¹⁷⁹

Around the same time, on May 25, 2011, a female Kuwaiti activist and politician, Salwa al-Mutairi, also spoke out in favor of the Islamic practice of sexual slavery of non-Muslim women, emphasizing that the practice accorded with Islamic law and the parameters of Islamic morality.

Peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you. My name is Salwa al-Mutairi. I received a message that was a little strange. A merchant told me that he would like to have a sex slave. He said he would not be negligent with her, and that Islam permitted this sort of thing. He was speaking the truth. The topic that he brought up is an old topic. I have been working on it for two years now. 

I was working with this man, a young man, who (liked) women a lot. I was sympathetic to his situation, and also dedicated to my work. I was given the opportunity to visit Mecca, and when I did so, I brought up (this man’s) situation to the muftis in Mecca. I told them that I had a question, since they were men who specialized in what was
halal
, and what was good, and who loved women. I said, “What is the law of sex slaves?” 

The mufti said, “With the law of sex slaves, there must be a Muslim nation at war with a Christian nation, or a nation which is not of the religion, not of the religion of Islam. And there must be prisoners of war.” 

“Is this forbidden by Islam?” I asked. 

“Absolutely not. Sex slaves are not forbidden by Islam. On the contrary, sex slaves are under a different law than the free woman. The free woman must be completely covered except for her face and hands. But the sex slave can be naked from the waist up. She differs a lot from the free woman. While the free woman requires a marriage contract, the sex slave does not—she only needs to be purchased by her husband, and that’s it. Therefore the sex slave is different than the free woman.” 

Of course, I also asked religious experts in Kuwait (about this issue), and they told me about the problem with the passionate man, or even the man who is committed to his religion. For every good man in our religion, the only solution for him—when forbidden women come around, if he’s tempted to sin, then the solution to this issue is for him to purchase sex slaves. I hope that Kuwait will enact the law for this category, this category of people—the sex slaves. . . . 

I hope that a law will be enacted for this category, and they will open the door for this, just as they have opened the door for servants (to come into the country). They should open the door for sex slaves, by enacting a sound law, so that our children don’t waste away in the abyss of adultery and moral depravity. Allah-willing, this will work out. I believe, look, the (sex slaves could come from) a country like Chechnya, where there is a war between an (Islamic) state and another state. Certainly there are prisoners. These prisoners could be purchased. They could be purchased and sold to the merchants in Kuwait. This is better than (the merchants) committing that which is forbidden. There is nothing wrong with this. 

Harun al-Rashid [caliph, or successor of Muhammad as leader of the Muslims, from 786 to 809] had many more sex slaves than this. When he died he had 2,000 sex slaves. But he only had one wife. This was not forbidden. Our
shari
’
a
permits such a thing as this. Praise be to Allah, here in Kuwait there are many merchants who are committed (to Islam). I hope the best for Kuwait, Allah-willing.
¹⁸⁰

“He had only one wife. This was not forbidden. Our
shari
’
a
permits such a thing as this.” Lest anyone think that Mutairi was joking, she reiterated her views on another occasion:

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 belly button 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.
¹⁸¹

All this is in accord, then, with Islam’s prohibition of fornication and restriction of sex to marriage. The “free woman has to be married properly to her husband,” but the sex slave does not. Yet, in the Islamic view, there is no sin involved if a man obtains such a slave.

This doesn’t appear to be the view solely of a couple of reactionary Muslim thinkers. Britain, in recent years, has seen a recurring phenomenon of “Asian” (a common euphemism for “Muslim” in the British media) “sex gangs”: groups of Muslim men who cajole or kidnap British non-Muslim girls, often in their early teens, and force them into prostitution.
¹⁸²
Muslims from the Twin Cities area in Minnesota ran an interstate sex trafficking ring until they were caught and indicted in late 2010.
¹⁸³
It’s true that the savage exploitation of girls and young women is an unfortunately cross-cultural phenomenon, but only in Islamic law does it carry anything approaching divine sanction.

Temporary marriage

When easy divorce, multiple wives, and sex slaves do not give adequate satisfaction, Shi’ites also practice temporary marriage, which is simply a marriage contract with a deadline; in effect, a fig-leaf of morality placed over what is plainly and simply prostitution. “Temporary wives” are commonly found in seminary towns where young men are on their own for the first time and vulnerable to offers of companionship. A diary entry written by the Shi’ite student Aqa Najafi Quchani early in the twentieth century epitomizes the moral sham of temporary marriage:

Fortunately, the woman was at home and I married her for a while. When I had quietened [sic] my desire and enjoyed the pleasure of the flesh from my lawful income, I gave the woman the
qeran
[an old Iranian monetary unit]. . . . It is reported that the Imams have said that whoever makes love legitimately has in effect killed an infidel. That means killing the lascivious spirit. It is obvious that when a
talabeh
[student] has no problem with the lower half of his body he is happier than a king.
¹⁸⁴

In a kind of parody of Christian sexual self-mastery, Aqa Najafi Quchani believed that he had engaged in “killing the lascivious spirit,” not by resisting it so that it flees but by giving in to it and engaging the services of a prostitute. Then, searching for a comparison for how beneficial it is for him to have “made love legitimately” rather than indulged in fornication, he refers to the highest authorities in Shi’ite Islam, the Imams, saying “whoever makes love legitimately has in effect killed an infidel.”

Today in the West, some accuse the so-called Christian Right of carrying out a “war on women,” and modern feminists read Christian history as an endless string of oppression. But in reality, Christian anthropology has elevated, protected, and liberated women, while Islam, a religion toward which contemporary feminists are much less vocal in criticism, blatantly objectifies and subjugates them. No good Catholic who loves and respects women—and that should be all of us—can get too friendly with Muslims as allies in the culture wars, given this great chasm between us.