First a caveat: the following document, captured by US Forces during a raid in Syria, has not independently been authenticated. If it proves to be a forgery, I’ll write a followup post. But for the moment I can’t imagine why ISIS, whose theologians supposedly created this fatwa (translated by the US), would forge such a document. Now there are the Greenwalds and W*******s among us who will claim that the US created this document to gin up hatred against the Islamic State, but the fatwa comports well with what we already know about the sex slavery of ISIS and how it deals with captured women such as the Yazidis. (Women who have been released have verified the practices, and we even have video of men discussing the sale of sex slaves.)
Reuters reports on the document:
Fatwa No. 64, dated Jan. 29, 2015, and issued by Islamic State’s Committee of Research and Fatwas, appears to codify sexual relations between IS fighters and their female captives for the first time, going further than a pamphlet issued by the group in 2014 on how to treat slaves.
The fatwa starts with a question: “Some of the brothers have committed violations in the matter of the treatment of the female slaves. These violations are not permitted by Sharia law because these rules have not been dealt with in ages. Are there any warnings pertaining to this matter?”
It then lists 15 injunctions, which in some instances go into explicit detail. For example:
“If the owner of a female captive, who has a daughter suitable for intercourse, has sexual relations with the latter, he is not permitted to have intercourse with her mother and she is permanently off limits to him. Should he have intercourse with her mother then he is not permitted to have intercourse with her daughter and she is to be off limits to him.”
Other orders: no intercourse during menstruation, no anal sex, and a son cannot copulate with the slave of his father—and vice versa. Note that while the fatwa does urge compassion towards these slaves, they are still slaves, and theologians say you can have sex with them. It is unthinkable for such rules to exist in an enlightened society.
Here’s the fatwa:
Of course there are those who claim that ISIS is not “real Islam,” but then what is real Islam? Is it Sunni or Shia? Does it include the belief that sharia law should be the law of the land, as many Muslims hold throughout the world? Does it include the belief that apostates should be killed, as many British Muslims believe? (Or are they “not real Muslims”?)
The fact is that because religion is just a bunch of made-up stuff, anything can be a religion if it holds to stories of the divine and supernatural, especially if it also invokes divine reward and punishment and promulgates a moral code, as does the Islamic State. Saying that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam is like saying that Methodists are not real Protestants. It’s a variant!
Reuters also quotes the Islamic apologists:
Professor Abdel Fattah Alawari, dean of Islamic Theology at Al-Azhar University, a 1,000-year-old Egyptian center for Islamic learning, said Islamic State “has nothing to do with Islam” and was deliberately misreading centuries-old verses and sayings that were originally designed to end, rather than encourage, slavery.
“Islam preaches freedom to slaves, not slavery. Slavery was the status quo when Islam came around,” he said. “Judaism, Christianity, Greek, Roman, and Persian civilizations all practiced it and took the females of their enemies as sex slaves. So Islam found this abhorrent practice and worked to gradually remove it.”
Of course I approve of those Muslims who publicly reject ISIS’s warped and brutal “morality,” but I think they’re barking up the wrong tree when they assert that it’s not a form Islam. It’s certainly a variant of Islam, just as Lutheranism is a variant of Protestantism and the extremist, polygamous sects of Mormons are variants of Mormonism. Such “no true Muslim” arguments serve only to exculpate religion, and, as far as I can see, do little to sway those lured by ISIS. The way to de-fang ISIS, in my humble opinion, rests not on arguing about forms of Islam are “proper” and which “improper”, but rather about which ways of behaving are to be permitted and encouraged in a civilized society.
Oh, and one last point. This behavior has nothing to do with Western colonialism. And those who would argue that it also has nothing to do with religion—nothing at all—are ignorant.
h/t: Steve
“…freedom to slaves!??”
“WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”
To all those who use the excuse “this is not true Islam”, please tell me one country where “True Islam” is practiced. There are many Muslim countries and some even call themselves Islamic. Surely, one of them practices “True Islam”. I would also like to know why a particular country was chosen.
Reminds me of people who defended Communism by saying that human rights abuses in the USSR, China, etc. didn’t count, since those countries didn’t practice “true Communism.”
Just this week I read a blog commenter arguing gulags weren’t part of real Stalinism.
Instead of condemnation of this disgusting thing, I expect to hear a lot about Sally Hemings this week.
Sub.
I really do not see how the Qur’anic laws around slavery are designed to discourage it and phase it out. That’s just being desperate to find a way for the Qur’an to retain its “reputation” as the perfect book.
Personally I have much more respect for those of whatever religion who simply admit that slavery is wrong. Of course, it makes their holy books wrong, but recognizing that is a step in the right direction.
Except that among many Muslims, it is very difficult to get them to admit that their holy books actually do contain all the barbarity we know is in there: which, of course, is the first hurdle, when considering how to reform the religion.
Stage 2a is to call you a liar even if you quote chapter and verse: alternatively, stage 2b is to explain that you don’t understand the beauty of the original. Stage 3 obviously involves the declaration of your white supremacist, imperialis racism, whether you’re a Paddy, an Eyetie, a Polack or a Viking. x
‘…like saying Methodists are real Protestants…’ Omitted ‘not’?
I apologize if I’ve mentioned this here before I’ll try and avoid it in the future, but I’m once again reminded of the Muslim apologist who said “If you take the Koran literally you’re interpreting it wrong”. Which is even sillier when you realize it’s pretty much the equivalent of saying “If you accept the Koran literally you’re cherry picking”.
For those who get PBS and might be interested – tonight at 9 PM central time, Frontline is about Escaping ISIS – Women who were once held as sex slaves.
I don’t really think Frontline would be making this up. They do some of the best investigative journalism in the U.S.
Some of the comments are really depressing. Where is the nation that practices “True Islam”, asks one commenter.
Answer: Where is the nation that practices “True Christianity”?
Another commenter uses the phrase “Muslim apologist.” Maybe this person meant apologist for violent Muslims in certain parts of the world who behead innocents, rape prisoners and push gay people off rooftops. Or, as they say, Muslims.
I find the question what is and is not “True Islam” not very helpful. More than a year back, several Islamic scholars published an open letter to ISIS, denouncing it as “un-Islamic.” This got a lot of press coverage, including on this blog. Who is right? ISIS or these scholars? It depends on which set of arguments wins over the majority of people practising the faith. If you conceive of religion as purely a man-made artefact, neither side is pre-ordained to be right or wrong. That will be settled by the ongoing battle between competing ideas put forth by factions with a stake in the outcome.
When Andrew Sullivan argued eloquently that being gay did not in any way contradict his Catholic faith (“I am gay BECAUSE I am Catholic”), he was trying to convince his fellow believers there was nothing un-Christian about accepting gay people as normal and equal human beings. Was he being an apologist?
I would be most curious if a imam writes a rebuttal to this claim of religious “truth”.
Some of the comments are really depressing. Where is the nation that practices “True Islam”, asks one commenter.
Answer: Where is the nation that practices “True Christianity”?
Another commenter uses the phrase “Muslim apologist.” Maybe this person meant apologist for violent Muslims in certain parts of the world who behead innocents, rape prisoners and push gay people off rooftops. Or, as they say, Muslims.
I find the question what is and is not “True Islam” not very helpful. More than a year back, several Islamic scholars published an open letter to ISIS, denouncing it as “un-Islamic.” This got a lot of press coverage, including on this blog. Who is right? ISIS or these scholars? It depends on which set of arguments wins over the majority of people practising the faith. If you conceive of religion as purely a man-made artefact, neither side is pre-ordained to be right or wrong. That will be settled by the ongoing battle between competing ideas advanced by various factions with a stake in the outcome.
When Andrew Sullivan argued eloquently that his being gay was in no way inconsistent with his being a Catholic (“I am gay BECAUSE I am Catholic”) he was urging Christians to realize there was nothing un-Christian in accepting gays as normal and equal fellow human beings. Was he being an apologist?
I suspect free sex has been a key motivator for ginning up the troupes for tens of thousands of years, with the blessing of the current gods. The bible contains a similar fatwa complete with numbers with decimals. But of course that was 5,000 years ago. This is now.
Oh, absolutely. If there’s one instinct that’s stronger than the urge to avoid death, it’s the male urge to get it on.
It is not just the Quran that justifies slavery, the Muslims inherited that bit from the other Abrahamic religions. For the most part, non-Muslims have given up the practice. But not completely, the slave market is alive and well in many Western nations including the US. As disgusting as this fatwa is, we are very willing to turn our back on the slave trade within our own more ‘civilized’ Western nations.
I don’t think it is entirely a double standard. The cases of sex slavery and work slavery in the U.S. are not sanctioned by the leaders, they are illegal, and prosecutions of the ringleaders are pretty common. I do concede that they are probably more widespread and common than I know. But do our authorities really turn their backs?
These rules are entirely based on the notion that a human can be property. These rules are meant to forestall property disputes.
Disgusting.
Steve Harvey declared ISIS fatwa 64, above, winner of Miss Repulsiverse, but I’m afraid he got it wrong. The actual winner should have been announced as fatwa 68, the theological warrant for the trade in unbelievers’ organs and cannibalism.
It was a close-run competition, but fatwa 68 wins it for the sheer beauty of its classical Arabic.
Fatwa 68 intends to spend its year in the sun developing an Islamic response to Médecins sans Frontières and writing a recipe book, ‘Cookery for Carnivores: How Religion flavours Everything’
http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/doc/document.pdf
Sorry, I cant agree with you. Islamic state with this fatua puts order to the morons. Anal sexuality?? Sex during menstruation?? Execratio nostra magna!!!
Realize that is a movement from heavens to put order in the land.
But they have to broaden their horizons. Bonobos have 98% at least of human genoma. And they are the worse of morons among hominids: anal, mouth, father-daughter, boy-boy, girl-girl…
(probably Adan and Eva transmitted the original sin for both humans and chimps).
Opus Dei, Heralds of the Gospel and other catholic sects congratulates the ISIS, because slavery is not important: only sin offends God!!!
@13, uh…what? I’m really hoping there’s some sort of bad English translation program behind your post.
These fatwas is disgusting. Googling the subject today (12/30), 22 hours after the story broke, no articles show up declaring it a hoax or saying that ISIS repudiates the reports. So I am depressingly left with the expectation that it’s legit. Oh well, the optimist in me will probably check the papers again tomorrow to see if there’s an update.
Putting the fat in the waaah. Man babies dispatched by the divine in a patriarchal, testosterone-infused theocracy get to do what they want … or they will be offended.
https://www.facebook.com/faisalsalmutar/videos/927751907316874/
The Q’uran was meant to end slavery, eh?
That must explain why every Muslim country had slave markets right into the 20th century, the last, Saudi Arabia, outlawing slavery in the late 1960s.
That must explain why the Barbary pirates in negotiations with Jefferson specifically defended slavery on the basis of its being condoned in the Sharia.
That must explain the Islamist uprising in the Sudan, led by the self-declared Mahdi, which was explicitely a response to the British seeking to outlaw the Muslim-Arab controlled slave trade in their African colonies.
Of course, every single Muslim who lived for 1400 years simply misunderstood. There was not a single abolitionist movement produced in Islamic lands during all that time, and slavery eventually ended only because it was directly outlawed by secularists.
But I’m sure Real Muslims would have gotten around to it eventually.
Right. Got it.