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Islamic views on concubinage

Muslim perspectives on retaining concubines From Wikiquote, the free quote compendium

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For the history of this practice, see History of concubinage in the Muslim world

In classical Islamic law, a concubine was a slave-woman with whom her master engaged in sexual relations. Concubinage was widely accepted by Muslim scholars in pre-modern times. Most modern Muslims, both scholars and laypersons, believe that Islam no longer accepts concubinage and that sexual relations are religiously permissible only within marriage.

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Islamic texts

Quran

  • If ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, Marry women of your choice, Two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice.
  • Also (prohibited are) women already married, except those whom your right hands possess: Thus hath Allah ordained (Prohibitions) against you: Except for these, all others are lawful, provided ye seek (them in marriage) with gifts from your property,—desiring chastity, not lust, seeing that ye derive benefit from them, give them their dowers (at least) as prescribed; but if, after a dower is prescribed, agree Mutually (to vary it), there is no blame on you, and Allah is All-knowing, All-wise."
  • And those who preserve their chastity. Save with their wives and those whom their right hands possess, for thus they are not blameworthy;
  • Who abstain from sex, And who guard their modesty, And who guard their private parts, Except with those joined to them in the marriage bond, or (the captives) whom their right hands possess,—for (in their case) they are free from blame.
  • O Prophet! We have made lawful to thee thy wives to whom thou hast paid their dowers; and those whom thy right hand possesses out of the prisoners of war whom Allah has assigned to thee; and daughters of thy paternal uncles and aunts, and daughters of thy maternal uncles and aunts, who migrated (from Makka) with thee; and any believing woman who dedicates her soul to the Prophet if the Prophet wishes to wed her;—this only for thee, and not for the Believers (at large); We know what We have appointed for them as to their wives and the captives whom their right hands possess;—in order that there should be no difficulty for thee. And Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.
  • It is not allowed thee to take (other) women henceforth, nor that thou shouldst change them for other wives even though their beauty pleased thee, save those whom thy right hand possesseth. And Allah is ever Watcher over all things.

Islamic law

  • It was unnecessary to invite infidels in the abode of war to embrace Islam before seizing their 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 things ... thus liable to be reduced to state of property, like things which were originally common 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’ .
    • Baillie, N. B. E. (1957) A digest of Moohummudan law, Lahore: n. pub., reprint of 1869-75 edn. As quoted in — 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.
  • 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. If they do not embrace Islam, they are used as maidservants but not for sexual relations.
    • Ibn Hanbal, cited in Jāmi‘ of al-Khallāl (d. 311 A.H. / 923 A.D.). Quoted in Yohanan Friedmann, "Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization)". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 107-108
  • A man may gratify his passion with his female slave in whatever way he pleases. It is lawful for a man to perform the act of Azil (i.e. coitus interruptus) with his female slave without her consent, whereas he cannot lawfully do so by his wife unless with her permission. The reason of this is that the Prophet has forbidden the act of Azil with a free woman without her consent but has permitted it to a master in the case of his female slave.
  • Besides, carnal connexion is the right of a free woman for the gratifying of her passion, and the propagation of children (whence it is that a wife is at liberty to reject a husband who is an eunuch or impotent); whereas a slave possesses no such right.—A man, therefore, is not at liberty to injure the right of his wife, whereas a master is absolute with respect to his slave. If, also, a man should marry the female slave of another, he must not perform the act of Azil with her without the consent of her master.
  • The object, in the purchase of a female slave, is cohabitation and generation of children.
    • The Hidayah (an important Muslim law book), translated by C. Hamilton, Vol. II, p. 409. (Also quoted in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Ch. 11)
  • 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.
    • Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, quoted from Yohanan Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion in Islam : Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 2003.— pp. 176-178
  • There is nothing wrong in a man having sexual relations with his Zoroastrian slave-girl.
    • Said ibn al-Musayyib. Safiıd b. al-Musayyab, quoted from Yohanan Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion in Islam : Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 2003.— pp. 176-178
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Quotes

  • 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
  • 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.”
    • — Ali, Kecia (2017). "Concubinage and Consent". International Journal of Media Studies. 49. doi:10.1017/S0020743816001203
  • 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
  • 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.
    • — Kecia Ali, Slavery and Sexual Ethics in Islam in Jacqueline L. Hazelton (25 October 2010). Beyond Slavery: Overcoming Its Religious and Sexual Legacies. Springer. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-230-11389-3.
  • 'Tis true, our law forbids to wed a Christian;
    But it forbids you not to ravish her.
    You have a conqueror's right upon your slave;
    And then the more despite you do a Christian,
    You serve the prophet more, who loathes that sect.
  • The Muhammadan religion appears to give almost unlimited license to concubinage, provided the woman be a slave and not a free Muslim woman.
    • Hughes, T.P., Dictionary of Islam, W.H. Allen & Co., London, 1885
  • Islam made it lawful for a master to have a number of slave-women captured in wars and enjoined that he alone may have sexual relations with them ... Europe abhors this law but at the same gladly allows that most odious form of animalism according to which a man may have illicit relations with any girl coming across him on his way to gratify his animal passions.
    • Muhammad Qutb Qutb, Muhammad, Islam, the Misunderstood Religion, Markazi Maktabi Islami, Delhi-6, 1992 p.50
  • 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
  • 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.
    • — 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
  • 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".... 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.
    • — Saad, Salma (1990). The legal and social status of women in the Hadith literature. University of Leeds, p. 245-8
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