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.
Nov. 27, 2013 update: Raymond Ibrahim brings more news on an Islamist call for slavery: A study on fatwas of the Muslim Brotherhood during its year in power, The Misguided Fatwas of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis, prepared by Sayed Zayed of the Fatwa Committee of Al-Azhar, reports ona fatwa that "demanded the enactment of a law allowing divorced women to own slaves." The goal, presumably, was to help divorcées who no longer have husbands to support them. |
