Traditionalist View on Sex Slaves

By Oliver Ruebenacker

I have never been an adherent of the traditional schools of thought (madhabs), but I always respected them and I still do, except that my respect received a devastating blow through an event I am going to describe now.

In early fall 2004, I started attending a class in Islamic Rules and Law(Fiqh) according to the Shafi'i school in order to learn more about this traditional school. For me, it was partly academic interest and in part a desire to live Islam, but it was clear to me from the beginning that I would apply to everything I learned a filter based on whether it made sense to me, and whether it matched my beliefs. The other students typically did not have such a filter: To them, everything that our teacher (whom we called "the shaykh") said was a religious requirement. I often disagreed with the shaykh but was silent about my objections to avoid friction, and I only asked questions if something was unclear or inconsistent, which happened quite often.

The class, along with a number of other classes, was organized by a non-profit organization in Boston. The main driving force behind it was a white US American convert, a very nice guy who was also strictly traditional and who was pursuing a degree in Islamic studies. I shall simply call him the director here. There was a ten dollar fee for every student per class session with the possibility of tuition waivers. By now our teacher has left the US, but back then, all classes were taught by the shaykh, who was a traditional scholar not only by subject matter but also by credentials: He had no research or teaching position, but he did have a large pile of teaching certificates (ijazas) by other traditional scholars.

During every class session, our shaykh would at some point start to praise Shaykh Nu Ha Mim Keller, and from the way he talked about him, it was obvious that the two were personally close to each other. One day our shaykh even told us Shaykh Keller appeared to him in a vision. The director once told me in a private conversation that Shaykh Keller considered our shaykh to be the second-most knowledgeable person in Northern America, right after Shaykh Hamza Yusuf who is the director of the Zaytuna Institute. In fact, the director told me, the Zaytuna Institute served as a role model for his project in Boston.

The class consisted of one three-hour session per week with a five-minute break, and was about stuff that every Muslim was required to know, or so we were told. We learned about how to pray, how to fast, how to do ablution and other things down to incredibly tiny and subtle details. And every little piece we learned was considered required knowledge, necessary to keep our worship valid under all kinds of circumstances which might arise. Our textbook was "Reliance of the Traveller", a translation into English by Shaykh Keller based on the works of Imam Nawawi. Imam Nawawi, our shaykh told us, was the ultimate source of Shafi'i Fiqh: Whenever there was any doubt about something, our shaykh said, we go back to Imam Nawawi.

Years ago, when I first learned about Islam, one point that bothered me was that Islam appears to tolerate slavery, at least according to traditional opinion. My Muslim friends responded to my concern with the usual traditional apologetic logic: They said, Islam tolerated slavery only to avoid a social and economic collapse and therefore made slavery vanish not suddenly but slowly over time. When I heard this the first time, I assumed slavery disappeared in the course of a few generations. Several years after I became Muslim I was shocked when I learned that in fact, slavery lasted on for more than a thousand years, until the nineteenth century, when international agreements between Muslim and Western countries banned slavery, and it clearly seems the Western countries were the driving force behind this move.

But there was something even more shocking: According to traditional schools of thought, not only was slavery permitted, but they also approved that every male master had the right to force any of his female slaves to have sex with him. This fact not only shatters any illusion one might have about the dignity a slave enjoyed according to traditional schools, it also smashes any hope to find a social or economical rationale for it. To me, this became a prime example for the necessity to reconsider the traditional rulings. I thought that any reasonable person would agree that the case of slavery and sex with slaves showed clearly that the traditional schools could not be relevant for us without major revision. Unfortunately, I had to learn that traditionalists do not agree.

Finally, in late Spring of 2005, the day came which turned out to be the last day I ever went to this fiqh class. I happened to meet the director shortly before class, and I asked him how he thought we should respond to the need for revision, especially considering that our textbook was based on a work already six hundred years old. To the director, there was not much need to revise the traditional thought, only in those places where the traditional scholars were silent. He thought that there may be need to add something, but no need at all to change anything. I asked him about slavery and sex with slaves, and he suggested I ask the shaykh. And so I did.

And so it came as it had to come. When the class reached the five minute break, I asked the Shaykh, what was the ruling on slaves, and whether it was permitted for a male master to sleep with slave women against their will. He simply said yes. I asked to clarify, so if there was a slave market today, I could go and buy a fourteen year old girl just in order to sleep with her? He said yes, and he added, not only was it permitted, it was also common practice among early Muslims. Ali Ibn Abi Talib, the shaykh said, had children from his slaves. The class was shocked, especially the female students. One female student asked, whether this was still applicable today? The shaykh did not address this question - he did not seem to understand what the student meant by "applicable" - but he added that when agreements against slavery came up the Muslim countries "were the first ones to sign". The shaykh said this was all according to the Qur'an. I later checked with a more modern scholar who assured me that the Qur'an does not say such a thing.

After this, I did not go to fiqh class any more. I figured out there is no use in learning details from people I do not agree with on the basics. It also caused me to doubt that the traditional schools can be reformed. Both Sunni and Shia consider Ali Ibn Abi Talib a major role model, and if he slept with his slaves, according to traditionalist logic, it must be fine. But it has also clarified the lines: The position on slavery and sleeping with slaves helps us to distinguish between traditionalists and modernists rather sharply.

Oliver is a convert from Germany who did his PhD in physics in Massachusetts and now lives with his wife in Cambridge

Editor's note: The article has been slightly changed. Quotes from a person have been removed, because the person claims those quotes did not give the complete picture about his ideas on the issue. I am sorry that it took me this long to make the change. Jawad 9/5/2005