Non-Muslims especially Christians very often raise the point as to how Muslims treated the women captives of war. They say why Islam allowed Muslims to have physical relations with those women.
SEE who were the first recipients of the Message of Islam, they were Arabs, and like else where there was a custom in Arabia to take women captives of War. Actually the wars were on tribal bases, when the men were killed there women taken and undoubtedly they were treated very badly in Pre-Islamic Arabia. Now there was the advent of Islam. Two things could have been done to abolish this bad practice.
1-To abolish it at once.
2-To do the same gradually with wisdom.
Islam preferred the second because if it would have been at once then thousands of women would have been at the mercy of the people who yet knew no manners. So ISLAM first asked them to be treated fairly and then also encouraged their manumission.
Islam put those women with none of their own to take care of them under the custody of Muslim men that they should treat them kindly, provide them board and lodge and give them respect. Imagine what could have been their fate in that particular environment where people married their own step-mothers?
Islam laid down rules which would eventually lead to eradicating the practice. So it allowed Muslims to have intercourse with slave women taken as captives of just and legitimate wars. In so doing, the woman would automatically become free if she got pregnant. What's more, her child would also become free.
The intimate physical relation, if any, had to be consensual:
The intimate physical relation had to be consensual. For, asking somebody to get into such a relation is against the very spirit of Islam. Read the following Hadith;
عن أبي ذر قال قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم من لاءمكم من مملوكيكم فأطعموه مما تأكلون واكسوه مما تلبسون ومن لم يلائمكم منهم فبيعوه ولا تعذبوا خلق الله
Narrated Abu Dharr: The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: "Feed those of your slaves who please you from what you eat and clothe them with what you clothe yourselves, but sell those who do not please you and do not punish Allah's creatures." (Sunan Abu Dawud, Hadith 5161. Albani classified it as Sahih)
The Hadith clearly tells us that if slave woman does not please her master i.e. refuse to work for him or allow him to lay down with her, the master is supposed to get away with her. If he will not; he will indulge in something wrong i.e. he may force her into such an action and Hadith terms such an act as 'punishing Allah's creature.'
The following Hadith clearly says that it is unlawful to force a slave woman into physical relations.
عن سلمة بن المحبق أن رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم قضى في رجل وقع على جارية امرأته إن كان استكرهها فهي حرة وعليه لسيدتها مثلها فإن كانت طاوعته فهي له وعليه لسيدتها مثلها
Narrated Salamah ibn al-Muhabbaq: The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) made a decision about a man who had intercourse with his wife's slave-girl as follows. If he forced her, she is free, and he shall give her mistress a slave-girl similar to her; if she asked him to have intercourse voluntarily, she will belong to him, and he shall give her mistress a slave-girl similar to her.
(Sunan Abu Dawud, Hadith 4460. Ibn Taymiyya authenticated it in his Majmu’a al-Fatawa 4/360 saying ‘Some have doubted this Hadith for its chain but it is a Hasan Hadith.’)
This is the most categorical Hadith maintaining that forced relationship is forbidden and it makes her free. Also,
عن رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ يَقُولُ مَنْ لَطَمَ مَمْلُوكَهُ أَوْ ضَرَبَهُ فَكَفَّارَتُهُ أَنْ يُعْتِقَهُ
The Prophet (pbuh) was narrated to have said; "He who slaps his slave or beats him, the expiation for it is that he should set him free" (Sahih Muslim, Hadith 3130)
When slapping the slave is such a heinous crime in the House of Islam, how can one think that Islam would allow the raping of slave women?
May Allah give people the understanding of the things as they really are!
INDEED ALLAH KNOWS THE BEST!
...by Waqar Akbar Cheema
Asalamualaikum,
ReplyDeleteAlthough it may seem like not many people read this. I encourage you to make these responses, as they are excellent to learn from either from a Muslim's perspective or from a non-Muslim's perspective.
Asalaamualaikum
Ibn Rafe
Jazakallah brother . May Allah grant you good of this life as well as of hereafter. Please suggest how can I popularise your blog.
ReplyDeleteJazak'Allah brother
ReplyDeleteU can share the topics with ur contacts through email or drop links on some forums or through mails.
It'll be great if you do it. May Allah reward u for this.
Remember in prayers akhi!
Assakam Ailekum: The issue of men allowed to have even consensual sex with female slaves in the Quran is highly questionable. It crucially hinges on how one interprets "Ma Malakat Aymanukum" is Surah Al-Muminoon (23:6). This phrase is usually interpreted as "those that your right hands possess" or "female slaves". However, "Ma Malakat Aymanukum" phrase has at least 5 other meanings that are discussed in detail at: http://--------------------care.html This website clearly demonstrates that "female slaves" is not the intended meaning in the Surah 23:6. Also, see Mohammad Asad's translation on this verse. I quote below his detailed explanation of "Ma Malakat Aymanukum": Muhammad Asad - End Note 3 (23:6) Lit., "or those whom their right hands possess" (aw ma malakat aymanuhum). Many of the commentators assume unquestioningly that this relates to female slaves, and that the particle aw ("or") denotes a permissible alternative. This interpretation is, in my opinion, inadmissible inasmuch as it is based on the assumption that sexual intercourse with ones female slave is permitted without marriage: an assumption, which is contradicted by the Qur'an itself (see 4:3, 24, 25 and 24:32, with the corresponding notes). Nor is this the only objection to the above-mentioned interpretation. Since the Qur'an applies the term ''believers" to men and women alike, and since the term azwaj ("spouses"), too, denotes both the male and the female partners in marriage, there is no reason for attributing to the phrase ma malakat aymanuhum the meaning of "their female slaves''; and since, on the other hand, it is out of the question that female and male slaves could have been referred to here it is obvious that this phrase does not relate to slaves at all, but has the same meaning as in 4:24 - namely, "those whom they rightfully possess through wedlock (see note 26 on 4:24) - with the significant difference that in the present context this expression relates to both husbands and wives, who "rightfully possess" one another by virtue of marriage. On the basis of this interpretation, the particle aw which precedes this clause does not denote an alternative ("or") but is, rather, in the nature of an explanatory amplification, more or less analogous to the phrase "in other words" or "that is", thus giving to the whole sentence the meaning, "save with their spouses - that is, those whom they rightfully possess [through wedlock]", etc. (Cf. a similar construction 25:62 - ''for him who has the will to take thought -that is [lit., "or"], has the will to be grateful".) Mohammad Asad's translation is considered to be one of the best one's in English. You can access his translation at the following website: http://www.---------------EnglishTranslations.htm
ReplyDeleteCOMMENT EDITED BY ADMN:
(Links have been made nonfunctional!
And because of edit the change in comment date. It was actually made on 03/11/2010)
I have visited the page and the rest of the explanation. But this is really not true for the reason that it is in complete oblivion to Ahadith about the issue. I know the sources you quoted are such that reject or atleast have a lot of apprehensions about the authority of Hadith.
ReplyDeleteNot that otherwise the explanation is plausible. Insha'Allah very soon you will find my detailed rebuttal to such erroneous assertion in the light of Qur'an ALONE.
For now, general readers ought to now that the stretched assertions above are in complete oblivion to Ahadith about the issue and thus not valid.
And Allah knows the best!