Would you join a religion that permitted men to have sex with their slave-girls throughout their enslavement-if this religion codified this act in its holy book? Many persons in the West and elsewhere who convert to Islam are women. I just got an email from a Muslim woman who said she converted to Islam two years ago. Would women do this if they knew about ALL of this religion? Reasonable women should stop and think a second time before taking this serious step but a reversible one, albeit punishable by death in many Islamic countries.
Islam goes more deeply than just the benign Five Pillars. It has many unpleasant truths lurking in its sacred texts. The goal of this article is to bring out yet another of these truths, so people can make fully informed decisions from all of the facts. Would the true God inspire the following verses six hundred years after Jesus showed us a better way? During the early years of his ministry, he never waged war on anyone, so these were times of peace, although he suffered from a measure of persecution.
For more information on the historical and the literary topical contexts of Sura 23, click here. The key words are "those who are legally in their possession. Two categories of women have been excluded from the general command of guarding the private parts: a wives, b women who are legally in one's possession, i. Thus the verse clearly lays down the law that one is allowed to have sexual relation with one's slave-girl as with one's wife, the basis being possession and not marriage.
If marriage had been the condition, the slave-girl also would have been included among the wives, and there was no need to mention them separately. The main point in this section, which Maududi overlooks or refuses to criticize, is that Muhammad himself endorses not only the entire institution of slavery, but also sex between male owners and their female slaves within this institution. But how can he and devout Muslims criticize their prophet without seriously damaging Islam?
But Muslims must do this, if they think clearly and critically, and for the good of humanity. It should be noted that Sura , also revealed in Mecca, uses nearly the identical words as Sura Men must guard their private parts from everyone but their wives and slave-girls, meaning that men may have sex with both "categories" Maududi's word.
