joshim

“Slave ownership was not only for the filthy rich, though, and the jurists identified with slaveholders rather than with slaves. Some owned at least one enslaved concubine; both Shāfiʿī and Ibn Ḥanbal died leaving concubines who had borne them children (umm walads). One report declares that Mālik ibn Anas “purchased three hundred sarārī [concubines] and would spend one night a year with each of them.” Even if, as is likely, this report exaggerates, it makes clear that concubinage was a normal part of the sociosexual patterns of life in this era, as was domestic servitude more generally. Shāfiʿī – by no means a wealthy man – apparently had in his household two adolescent male slaves as well as an Andalusian wet nurse, who nursed the child born to his slave concubine. Stories about Mālik refer to a black female slave who answered knocks at his gate. In addition to illustrating the widespread nature of slaveholding, these anecdotes help us remember that their own status as slaveholders cannot help but have influenced the jurists’ rulings.”

— Kecia Ali, (Marriage and slavery in early Islam, 2010, p. 22)

The Quran opposes the subjugation of people in plain terms. al-aʿrāf, 7/157 mentions the nabiy who “lift[s] from them their burdens and the shackles that were upon them.” al-nisāa, 4/19 forbids the believers to “inherit the nisā against their will.” al-nisāa, 4/75 says: “And how could you refuse to fight in the cause of God and of the utterly helpless men and women and children who are crying, “O our Sustainer! Lead us forth [to freedom] out of this land whose people are oppressors...”” In spite of this, slavery persisted throughout Islamic history. Dr. Ali also quotes the Hanafi jurist Muhammad ‘Ala al-Din Haskafi saying, “A free man may marry four free women and female slaves, not more, and he may take as many concubines as he wishes from among his female slaves.” (Sexual Ethics and Islam, 2006, p. 39) Haskafi lived in the seventeenth century, which suggests the view of many Muslims today – that Islam came to phase out slavery – wasn’t one shared by the scholars of the past. They were still justifying and regulating the practice hundreds of years after the Prophet passed away.

I do mention this from time to time, but not to hang over the heads of Muslims or to make people uncomfortable. There is no moral justification for sex-slavery, so I think the legitimate status of concubinage in Islam’s past has far reaching consequences for how we view the role of tradition in actualising Islam today. While few Muslims today would condone sex-slavery, many do insist that the role of women must be defined by the same classical sources which allowed concubinage. Pro-concubine rulings of the classical scholars are divorced from their other rulings regarding women, essentially keeping the overall fiqh of women intact.

The problem with this is that the classical scholars would have viewed their legal thinking as unified, each ruling in sync with other rulings, each being in harmony with a wider Islamic ethic. The world-view which informed their views of concubinage also informed their views of hierarchies and women in general. Of course, it’s possible to isolate one particular practice from a tradition and discard it without the whole thing collapsing; the Sunnah didn’t die along with the institution of slavery. But if the classical jurists believed slave women could be used for sex, while free women must be covered from head to toe, it’s reasonable to examine what the relationship between these two rulings are. Did the moral arguments used to arrive at the former feature in the latter? If yes, is the latter morally questionable like the former?

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Tagged: #sunnah #women #tradition #slavery