Still looking for answers:
I would still like to know how having sex with captive women works toward the abolishment of slavery, gives glory to God and does not violate His commandment “Thou shall not commit adultery”.
hi , jay
Let’s first agree that speaking about something that does not exist in the modern world is troubling our minds with things that are not socially constructive or needed nowadays.
Speaking about slavery in this era of technology seems to be off the track or outdated, simply because we have so many other issues that represent a real challenge for Muslims and non-Muslims.
Basically, Islam came while slavery was an inherited tradition, very deep-rooted in the heart of the Arab society.
Children born from a relation between a master and his slave woman were not recognized as free children. On the contrary, they were to follow the hard track of their mothers and lead a tough life of slavery and humiliation.
A master had the right to have sexual relations with his slave woman with no rights due to her. Such a relation was not socially frowned upon because it was normal in that society, but what was really awful is that the slave woman had no rights, making her simply a sex object.
Since Islam came to liberate people from the chains of being socially neglected or humiliated, Islam said that such a relationship must have certain rights. It must mark a change in the life of that slave woman and the outcome of the relation, namely the child. The child was considered free and recognized as the child of the master and no more his slave.
As for the slave woman, such a relationship meant an end to her life as a slave, for she would not be the slave of anyone after her master, the father of her child. That is, she could not be sold to anyone else, and she would be manumitted at her master’s death.
rather , she would be elevated to the status of umm walad or mother of a free child, which gave her the privilege of being freed once the father of her child died. Basically, her remaining as umm walad did not really mean she was staying as a slave; rather, she was honored and respected.
This is a unique solution Islam offered to such a miserable life, and imagine what a great change it brought and how many smiles it drew on the faces of many of these agonized slaves.
When Islam came, slavery existed, no doubt about it. And when Islam wanted to ban it, it brought logical and practical solutions for that problem. Many people had their businesses based on trading in slaves and many people were already in the bondage of slavery under their masters at that time.
Let us suppose that Islam had said, overnight, “no more slavery,” what would have happened? Many people would have lost their businesses and gone bankrupt, and the economic stability of the society would have been jeopardized. Worse still, many slaves would have found themselves in the street with no shelter or ability to establish a new life.
Therefore, Islam wanted to bring slavery to an end and drain its sources but in a way that would end happily without causing disruption in the society. Islam started by limiting the sources of acquiring slaves. It prohibited raiding caravans and settled people, and kidnapping and enslaving their women and children. It highly valued the manumission of slaves, and made the freeing of slaves one way of coming nearer to Allah.
Coming to the point of considering a sexual relationship with a female slave as adultery
I would like to say that it was never considered so for several reasons:
- A female slave was under the right hand of her master and he was allowed to sleep only with whoever was under his ownership. This was considered like an indirect or special wedlock.
- The relationship itself was within boundaries and involved rights and responsibilities like the issue of umm al-walad and the freedom of the child, for example. This meant that it was, by no means, similar to adultery, which incurs no rights and establishes no responsibilities. In adultery, any passerby can sleep with a woman and just flee without taking any responsibility for any resulting child or for the woman, which is obviously not the case here.
One remaining point here is that masters did not have to sleep with their female slaves. It was something allowable but not obligatory. Yet it presented, to some extent and in certain times, one glowing way to freedom for many people who suffered slavery.
Also, the Prophet’s mission was not to eradicate slavery, but to establish rights and bring people to the point of being able to eradicate it from their own hearts first before they eradicated it from society. No one can deny that it happened ideally and practically.
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to the bold words…so this means that the slave has no rights whatsoever to fight back or oppose the master for whatever filthy intention the master has? They don’t have option to choose their husband at all? And you think that this will somehow liberate the female slave. We’re not even talking about the male slaves that would just be rotten under the ownership of the master! You said islam frees female slaves when the masters died and the children will be free. The children has the master’s dna for god’s sake, to reject them their rights as children is most evil thing to do, you don’t have to have a prophet to tell such thing.
