Talk:History of concubinage in the Muslim world/Archive 1

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"Sex positions"

The article says,

In his sex manual, Ali ibn Nasr promoted experimental sex with female slaves on the basis that free wives were respectable and would feel humiliated by the use of the sex positions described in his book because they show low esteem and a lack of love from the man.

Concubinage was definitely practiced in medieval Muslim world, but what do sex positions with concubines have to do with Islamic jurisprudence? Is there any evidence that the Encyclopedia of Pleasure has any religious merit?

We wouldn't simply list every piece of erotic literature every written by a Christian at Religion_and_sexuality#Christianity, and we shouldn't be doing the same for Muslims.VR _talk 08:45, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Is this in a section which concerns Islamic jurisprudence? Or is it in a section like overview of slave experiences? Mcphurphy (talk) 08:49, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Abolitionism

@39.37.132.106: I am considering to place your newly added content on abolitionism in a separate section. However, I want to be convinced first that it belongs to this article and not Slavery in Islam. None of the new content you added is specifically on abolition of sexual slavery. This page focuses specifically on sexual slavery, not just slavery in general. Mcphurphy (talk) 02:48, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Ok, so here are my points along with the justifications for the minor edits:

1: Abolition of Sexual slavery is obviously linked to abolition of slavery. William Gervase Clarence-Smith extensively cited book is mainly about slavery and only tangentially about sexual slavery.

The section about abolition as it stands is pretty disjointed and also contradicts the section on abolition in Slavery in Islam. It jumps back and forth, from form country to country (India to Palestine to Armenia to Egypt to Mauritania) and century to century (1926 to 1830 to the present day and back again to 1981 to 1997)

2: The modern manifestation section is equally disjointed and includes rapatio and warcrimes by non-Islamist and even non-Muslim groups like Sikhs and Hindus, which can't really be considered related to the topic unless the focus of the topic is shifted away from Islamic legalism.

3: There are a few issues about faithfulness to the sources.

For instance "William Gervase Clarence-Smith" describes the abolitionist movement in the Islamic world as fledgling and emphasizes the growth of the abolitionist sentiment in the Islamic world (pg 11) while you call it "weak" (which is not a synonym).

Similarly WilliamOR81 concerns mentioned above seem justified. In response to the removal of Most ordinary Muslims ignore the existence of slavery you reedited it by giving text justifications such as quite a number of... and many have chosen to ignore the issue. The term most again seems to be unjustified as it does not refer to what the cite says. The claim that most Muslims are simply ignorant about their own tradition also seems to be a pretty exceptional claim.

4: I don't mean to be rude, but the presentation of some of the sources actually seems downright deceptive and is pretty POV. Almost all references to abolition (from William Gervase Clarence-Smith) are omitted for example Musa Karama pg 144, Gus Dur pg 143, Al Azhhar pg 140, Ahmed Bey pg 136, Agha Khan pg, 132, Ali Nur Ali Shah pg 130, the entire chapter on Rationalism pg 195 (Syed Khan, Abduh, etc), etc while anti-abolitionist arguments are carefully selected and presented.

These are just a few things that I have have noted at a very cursory glance about a single source and section. More may follow.39.37.132.106 (talk) 18:35, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I have taken some of your concerns on board in editing this article.

1. I agree that abolition of sexual slavery is linked to abolition of slavery. Hence, I have re-added an abolition section. I have also added a better synonym for "fledgling" - "nascent."

In my new edits I have taken on board your concern about chronology in the abolition section, hence I have rearranged the text according to the timeline. I would not worry about "jumping" from region to region. It is a summary of the Muslim world in its entirety during the 19th and early 20th centuries when slavery was being gradually abolished in the Muslim world.

There is no requirement to follow Slavery in Islam - which itself needs improvement.

2: I reorganised the section on Modern manifestation per region and arranged the events narrated in chronological order. You are right that our section on modern sexual slavery (which is by definition comes under raptio and war crime) includes instances of non-muslims practising this on Muslim victims.

However, the reason for that is the same reason I have included the Sexual enslavement of Muslim women by non-Muslim men under the History of sexual enslavement section. Robert Gleave mentions in his book (on pg 171) that Muslim sources historically had double standards vis-a-vis the capture and (sexual) enslavement of non-muslim and muslim women. So this presents an excellent contrast. And it puts the usual apologetics about sexual slavery into perspective for readers. Besides it would not be neutral or NPOV to write about a modern instance of Muslims sexually enslaving non-muslims when the sources say that in the same event non-muslims also took and sold Muslim women as sex-slaves.

3. WilliamOR81's objections above have already been dealt with above. I have quoted the sources to support my use of words. We have to be faithful to the source material. The sources explicitly state that most Muslims today reject slavery whereas the sanction for it exists in classical Islamic law. Moreover, it states that most Muslims not only reject slavery but also simply ignore classical Islam's consensus in favour of sexual slavery. The source also says that many Muslim "laypeople" gloss over the existence of slavery and concubinage in Muslim history and texts.

4. Slavery in the Muslim world was eventually abolished because of pressure from colonial and western governments during the 19th and 20th centuries. Kecia Ali notes (pg 54) that there was no internal strong abolitionist movement which was grounded in Islamic principles or tradition. That said, there were Muslim reformists, modernists and rationalists such as Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Agha Khan and Muhammad Abduh who called for its abolition. What needs to be pointed out, however, is that these were mostly not traditional Islamic scholars nor did their ideas gain currency in traditional scholarly circles. They went against the consensus of Islamic scholarship in their time and drew their condemnation.

Slavery and concubinage had for almost its entire history in the Muslim world, been sanctioned and regulated by the traditional scholars who had been trained in the Islamic sciences and jurisprudence. So the history of classical scholarship and their modern heirs is inseparable from the history of sexual slavery and its abolition in the Muslim world.

5. That said, I have added content on the Muslim abolitionists too.Mcphurphy (talk) 22:23, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for taking my concerns into consideration. However, I still do feel that the article has a fairly POV tone. The abolitionist section still opens and closes with the heavy emphasis that slavery is still legal in Islam and that this position is held by most Islamic scholars while ignorant laymen simply obfuscate or ignore the issue.

Abolitionist stances where briefly mentioned are quickly refuted by throwing in opposing views and holding them as authoritative rather than giving them equal weight-age. For instance, William Muirs comments in the abolition section again seem out of place and the pro-abolitionist argument includes not just reformists, modernists and rationalists but fatwas from Al-Azhar, Tanzimet reformers (supported by the Ottoman state and Caliphs) and the above-mentioned scholars as well. I do believe that the above mentioned scholars are certainly more noteworthy than say, the views of unnamed Palestinian, Deobandi and Mauritanian scholars.

Another example would be the given stance of Al Ahzhar. The article states that " Shaykh Muhammad Ahmad al-Bulayqi defended concubinage and refuted modernist arguments". However this is false and not is what the source says. More importantly, it again omits the subsequent positions of Al-Azhar mentioned in the source. Similarly while the article correctly mentions that "(Nevertheless,) Most ulama in West Africa opposed abolition." it again omits the preceding statements both by Shaikh Musa Karama as well as the statements that "reformist views persisted in West Africa","some Ulama gave their degrees their cautious endorsement". Such bowdlerized presentations are quite repetitive within the article with anti-abolitionist arguments omitted.

Pressure from Western governments may have existed but it is equally true that slavery was, supported by reformers, internally abolished in the Muslim world which is the status-quo and this is mentioned in the abolitionist section in Islamic views on slavery. If this is not true one wonders how slavery was abolished in most of the Islamic world in the first place. You give the reformist views too little credit. Now it is true that there is a dispute on this issue with anti-abolitionists (particularly of the Jihadi bent) disagreeing with abolitionists but the converse is just as true as well.

The abolitionist/ modern view section is specifically about the modern views so your point about its history and the view of traditionalist scholars from the past seems irrelevant here.

"it would not be neutral or NPOV to write about a modern instance of Muslims sexually enslaving non-muslims when the sources say that in the same event non-muslims also took and sold Muslim women as sex-slaves." This is very true, but in that case I question the connection of this type of enslavement (by both Muslims and non-Muslims) to the topic. Most of the sources in the South Asia section do not link the partition rapes with Islamic sexual slavery making this an example of synthesis. Additionally the content about ISIS and the Taliban seems more relavant to Slavery in 21st-century Islamism.

This article is fairly new and much monopolized, unlike Islamic views on slavery. As WilliamOR81 suggest WIKI:Islam should have a closer look on this. Until then I think it is quite justified to include a POV tag. Please do not remove it without proper justification and consensus.

@119.152.140.32: I understand that your main issue is with the Weight-age. You believe that the pro-abolitionist Muslim views are just as noteworthy, in fact even more noteworthy, than the anti-abolitionist Muslim views. I will explain here why that is not the case.

1. The academic sources do say that classical Islamic law, by consensus, sanctions sexual slavery and that most modern Muslims ignore it while some modern writers deny it. I do not know how many times I have to show the quotes from the sources saying this:

These questions arise urgently when one considers that classical Islamic law accepts both slavery as an institution and the sexual use of female slaves, whereas the overwhelming majority of Muslims today completely reject all forms of slavery.

— Kecia Ali, Slavery and Sexual Ethics in Islam

Yet quite a number of late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century Muslim authors and laypeople gloss over the existence of slavery, and especially concubinage, in Muslim history and texts.

— Kecia Ali, Slavery and Sexual Ethics in Islam

Given that the vast majority of contemporary Muslims reject slavery, many have chosen to ignore the issue. Rather than reiterate the classical religious permission for slavery and slave concubinage, even to oppose it, they seem to believe that a moderate or progressive agenda is better served by emphasizing the contemporary agreement that slavery, and especially concubinage, is forbidden as completely outside the bounds of Muslim sexual morality. Although a few authors deny the validity of slave concubinage outright, asserting that “those jurists of Islamic law who laid down the rule that a master may have [a] sexual relationship with his female slave without marriage are totally mistaken,” most simply ignore what prevailed as the consensus for over a millennium.

— Kecia Ali, Slavery and Sexual Ethics in Islam

2. Contrary to your claim, I have said exactly what Smith's book says about Shaykh Muhammad Ahmad al-Bulaqi.

After the British conquest in 1882, the Egyptian ulama declared that as the Prophet had not prohibited slavery, neither could they. Shaykh Muhammad Ahmad al-Bulaqi, of Al-Azhar, refuted modernist theses on women in 1899, by implication defending concubinage.

— Smith, Islam and the Abolition of Slavery

3. You have claimed that Al-Azhar gave fatwas supporting the abolition of slavery. But Smith's book just says that they evaded the issue for decades. And by the time slavery had already been abolished by governments, they simply regarded its abolition as a fait accompli. There is also no mention in Smith's book of any Ottoman fatwas against slavery.

Al-Azhar prevaricated for decades...An Al-Azhar fatwa, available on the internet in Indonesian in 2001, simply relegated slavery to the domain of history.

— Smith, Islam and the Abolition of Slavery

4. As I asserted earlier, slavery was abolished in the Muslim world because of Western pressure. It is inconceivable that Muslims practised slavery for 13 centuries and then all of a sudden started calling for the abolition of slavery by their own initiative, conveniently at the same time we know the West was pressuring them to eradicate it. Kecia Ali even says there was no strong internal religious critique of slavery.

the pressure to abolish slavery generally came from some combination of European colonial powers and economic and demographic shifts. A few Muslim clerics, such as one writing in the mid-nineteenth-century Arabian peninsula, opposed abolition on the grounds that slavery was accepted in religious texts. Similarly, one scholar argues “that slavery enjoyed a high degree of legitimacy in Ottoman society. That legitimacy derived from Islamic sanction,” among other factors. Although abolition did eventually occur, there was not a strong internally developed critique of slaveholding based on religious principles.

— Kecia Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam : Feminist Reflections on Qur'an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence

5. Moreover, by Smith's own admission, Muslims only had a "quasi" or semi abolitionist tradition and even that was a minority trend. And even then the ulama were not against enslavement itself, they were only against enslavement outside "properly constituted holy wars."

It is thus arguable that a minority ‘quasi‐ abolitionist’ tradition had emerged, which considered that enforcing the proper conditions of enslavement would eventually cause slavery to wither away. This was because the ‘ulama’ taught that the normal condition of humanity was freedom, and that enslavement was only permitted through the capture of obdurate infidels in properly constituted holy wars, or through birth from such captives. Free persons could not sell themselves or their children into slavery, and could not be enslaved for debts or crimes.

— Wiliam Clarence-Smith, Slavery and the Slave Trades in the Indian Ocean and Arab Worlds: Global Connections and Disconnections

Their issue was not with enslavement itself. Rather, their issue was with the illegitimate enslavement of free Muslims. When Muslim reformists began to move from such "quasi-abolitionism" to rejecting slavery altogether, they were condemned by the traditional scholars.

Although misgivings about methods of enslavement had an established pedigree in Islam, these doubts were forcefully rekindled by a wave of holy wars that rocked Islam in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These titanic civil wars entailed the massive enslavement of ‘bad Muslims,’ from Senegal to Sumatra, and from Somalia to Sichuan. Moreover, this period witnessed the onset of the Western abolitionist crusade, which Muslims to re-open the issue. From around the 1870s, a few Muslim reformers began to move beyond ‘quasi‐ abolitionism’ to an outright assault on slavery. The earliest and most radical proposals came from modernist ‘lay’ intellectuals in British India, causing a furious backlash from conservative Muslim scholars. In the Nile valley, Egyptian abolitionism, which arose in the 1880s, was more circumspect, and it initially associated ‘ulama’ with the ‘laity.’ Abolition in the Sudan was eventually incorporated into a far‐reaching ‘second message of Islam,’ which was preached by ‘lay’ intellectuals, and which was rejected as heretical by some believers.

— Wiliam Clarence-Smith, Slavery and the Slave Trades in the Indian Ocean and Arab Worlds: Global Connections and Disconnections

6. While I have cited William Clarence-Smith, we still need to take Smith with a pinch of salt. Another scholar, Ehud R. Toledano, has reviewed his work in the following book review, wherein he states that the evidence which Smith has provided of pro-abolitionist Muslim voices is "scant" and that such views "were very few" and "the phenomenon appears so marginal that it cannot possibly deserve to be called a sentiment."

So what was abolitionism in such contexts? Can we at all use here this loaded, essentially foreign, term in a meaningful, historical sense ? Should we bother to ? True, some historians might find it worthwhile to study lone abolitionist voices in an otherwise solid anti-abolition discourse. But then, some historians would always insist that the unrepresentative is important in and of itself, regardless of its social and political significance. Even if we examine with good intentions the scant evidence that Clarence-Smith himself provides in his book, we cannot but conclude how very few and very far between such voices indeed were. Considered within the huge dimensions of the Islamic World and the extended period of time allowed by the author for these voices to have emerged, the phenomenon appears so marginal and ephemeral that it cannot possibly deserve to be called a "sentiment", let alone constitute a Subversive current' or be described as a Movement'. Why, then, we may ask, does Clarence-Smith insist on this unpromising line of investigation and rather forced research agenda

— Ehud R. Toledano

Toledano repeats this here and points out that scholars would not find much evidence of abolitionist or "anti-enslavement" manifestations in Islamic societies if they undertook honest study.

Also, if scholars were to undertake, in earnest and honesty, extensive studies of anti-enslavement manifestations in Islamic societies, their work would most probably reinforce the kind of negative view of ' Islam' that Clarence-Smith is so eager to revise and reconstruct.

— Ehud R. Toledano

So going by your own argument about weight-age, how can we give equal space to the pro-abolitionists as the anti-abolitionists, when the academics are saying that the pro-abolitionists were a tiny minority? They just cannot be given the same weight.

7. I don't understand what you mean when you say the sources on the partition kidnappings of women do not "link it to Islamic sexual slavery." Does every source on the Ottomans and Mughals taking non-muslim women have to explicitly say "this is Islamic"? Amal Kumar Chattopadhyay, a scholar who has written peer reviewed works on slavery in India [1], includes in his book on slavery the fact that in 1947 thousands of non-muslim women were kidnapped from Kashmir and Punjab, sold into Pakistani and Middle Eastern harems and kept for concubinage. He says they lived as slaves, were forcibly converted and were used by Muslims for sex.[2]

The partition abductions of Hindu women have often been linked to the medieval history of sexual enslavement of Hindu women by Muslims.[3] For instance the narrative of the Hindu queen Padmini and Alauddin, who have already been referred to in this article under the History section, has been associated with the rape and abduction of Hindu women during the Partition.[4] Alauddin is often depicted as the epitome of the "libidinous Muslim."[5] But Urvashi Butalia says about the "libidinous Muslim" trope that the same thing happened on the Indian side during partition.[6] We also have Pippa Virdee mentioning that even Muslim women in 1947 killed themselves to save their honour in the same way that Hindu Rajput women did jauhar to save themselves from Muslims in medieval times.[7] So these also justify the inclusion of Muslim women's parallel sexual slavery in 1947.Mcphurphy (talk) 03:58, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

119.152.140.32 Mcphurphy has carefully and thoroughly responded to the issues you have raised - explaining that is what the RSs say. As Mcphurphy says, "The academic sources do say that classical Islamic law sanctions sexual slavery and that most modern Muslims ignore it while some modern writers deny it." The current article content - reflecting that reality - meets the requirements of WP:PG. I suggest, if you believe the article needs more content, you may wish to add it. Koreangauteng (talk) 04:40, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

1 Actually the dispute is about modern Muslims views. The classical views are not in dispute so you seem to be repeating a strawman. However, do note that the dispute does indeed involve the relevance of modern views when the classical and pre-modern views are discussed. Your opinion seems to be that modern views should be sidelined and considered non-noteworthy while in fact many Islam related articles extensively discuss modern views both in the lead as well as in much of the main article content (see for example Jihad).

Moreover the academic "sources" that you point out seems to be almost exclusively Kecia Ali. As I pointed out (and so did a previous editor), the generalized comments about Muslims seem to be of a pretty exceptional nature. Considering that Keica Ali herself has disputes with "modern scholar(s) on Islamic legal history", I do believe that one should exercise caution in making broad, disputed and generalized comments on Muslim attitudes from the source. Hence the points should be neutrally worded or perhaps contrasted with Smiths points given below (see point 5).

I'll also once raise issue with William Muirs comments in the beginning of the abolition section. William Muir, while a reliable scholar is certainly considered dated compared to more recent scholarship (such as W. Montgomery Watt) but more importantly, the brazen prefaced anti-abolitionist comments (and he has made many negative comments on different issues relating to Islam) seems to be a clear example of POV pushing. In the face of presentations such as these, claiming that I am the one trying to unduly highlight pro-abolitionst views is simply ludicrous.

2 "I have said exactly what Smith's book says about Shaykh Muhammad Ahmad al-Bulaqi." Again this is untrue. Your edit claims that Ahmad al-Bulaqi explicitly defends concubinage while the source only says that he does so by implication. As with the weak/vs/nascent argument, it's a distinction with a difference.

3 "they simply regarded its abolition as a fait accompli." I'm sure you can see the point about Maliki law made inbetween 1939 and 2001 where it says Islam sought to "cure slavery". It clearly does give an abolitionist argument. Whether the argument is strong or weak is another matter entirely. The same arguments are still actually repeated not just by Al Azhar [8] but by Islamist groups like Hizbur Tahrir as well [[9]]. Yes I know that the above sources are not RS but it's to demonstrate a point one could question the inclusion of Taqi Usmani's Deobandi site in the article as well.

The previous point about Ottoman slavery, Tanzimet reforms and Al Azhar were made not relating to Smiths book but can be made independently. [[10]] (The points mentioned in the argument before last were related to Smiths book though Musa Karama pg 144, Gus Dur pg 143, etc)

4 "It is inconceivable that Muslims practised slavery for 13 centuries and then all of a sudden started calling for the abolition of slavery by their own initiative". This is not what I claim. The pressure by the West led to a downward effect with Muslim rulers and then court Ulema and then laymen subscribing to abolitionist views.

As the Encyclopaedia of Islam describes it: "Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, slavery gradually became outlawed and suppressed in Muslim lands, due to a combination of pressure exerted by Western nations such as Britain and France, internal pressure from Islamic abolitionist movements, and economic pressures. Brunschvig. 'Abd; Encyclopedia of Islam.

This article completely omits any reference to the internal pressure that the Encyclopaedia of Islam mentions and wrongly claims that such efforts had near to nil effects. By the way, this is how suttee was banned in India as well. While British pressure existed it would be deceptive to paint it is an all Western effort while airbrushing out reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy. It is equally deceptive in this case as well.

5 Mcphurphy, If you look at Smiths points [11] he makes a narrative argument where first reformers were indeed met with backlash but then as time went by conservatives eventually come to accept the abolition of slavery as well as progressing from quasi-abolition to full abolition viewpoints. Ofcource differences, disputes and POVs existed (especially when it comes to the earliest and most radical proposals) and they existed on both sides (although you're only concerned at presenting one side of the debate) but that's only part of the narrative. The point about quasi‐abolitionist views is again a specific stance in a specific instance which later became void as time went by. Hence it says "minority ‘quasi‐ abolitionist’ tradition had emerged" i.e at that point in time. This changed as time went by as Smith himself demonstrates in the rest of the article. I do not see your point in the quoted text seeing as it is about specific conservative scholars at a certain time. It also says that some Ulema (as in Egypt) and laymen associated with abolition while some other believers regarded it as heretical. Your claim that both views should not be given equal views is not convincing at all.

In totality however, Smith's narrative starts with the claim that:

"Islamic abolition was particularly important in turning abolitionist laws into a lived social reality"

and ends with the claim that:

"an Islamic consensus against slavery became dominant, mainly informed by the cautious gradualism of Sayyid Amir ‘Ali, rather than the radical views of Sayyid Ahmad Khan. The abolitionist victory was not uncontested, however".

This point credits Ammer Alir rather than Syed Ahmed but contradicts your point that the views of Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Ameer Ali had no discernible effect and that their views do not merit significant mention. So too the point that "there is no Islamic consensus against slavery" and a consensus does include scholars. Smith does indeed add that the victory was not uncontested but again, you deny that there was any Islamically driven victory in the first place. The specific instances you cite actually go against both the broader point and other points (which are completely omitted) that Smith makes in the text. (this is related to the next point)

6 "While I have cited William Clarence-Smith, we still need to take Smith with a pinch of salt." Mcphurphy, you have extensively cited this book with an anti-abolitionist slant. Now that I point out that the pro-abolitionist stance from the same book is omitted, you have started denigrating the source itself. The strange thing is that Ehud R. Toledano's comments make little sense looking at the presentations from Smiths book in this article, as one would be forgiven for thinking that it was about the non-abolition of Slavery in the Islamic world. Selectively citing Smiths book while tying it in to the criticism of a different author is, once again, an example of synthesis. Smiths presentations should be holistically and reliably given instead of editing them to conform to the criticism and views of a different academic (like Toledano or Ali). Their views may be given separately. Again, the abolitionist content that Smith himself deems noteworthy enough to be included in his works should be included in the article as well. Your rejection for doing so makes no sense.

6 Your point about taking Smith as a RS with a pinch of salt is also a bit ironic. For instance, who is Amal Kumar Chattopadhyay? I have been unable to find much information on the author by way of either support or criticism with the exception of a single book that you cite. Some of his musings in the cite such as [12] "India is a holy land and it has many thousand year great civilization..."the hearts of Indian people are filled with the milk of motherly affections" (up to the next page) are decidedly non-scholarly. I do believe that his works can certainly be taken with a pinch of salt.

7, Here's the thing. If one accepts the partition violence abductions as an example of Islamic Sexual Slavery, one would by extension also have to logically accept that the Partition violence itself committed by both Muslims and non-Muslims was an example of Jihad since that is the Islamically legal way of acquiring concubines. This is preposterous. Considering the spontaneous nature of the violence and the sheer number of Muslims who suffered, no secular or Islamic scholar considers partition violence itself to be an example (or "modern manifestation") of Jihad (though Jihad rhetoric was certainly used) and it is equally preposterous to consider the partition abductions within this frame work. Again, I do not see any RS linking this section to the topic in particular. Keep in mind that such occurrences occur in wartime and rioting as in the case of Korean Comfort women. In such instances you do indeed need some specific sources talking specifically about Islamic sexual slavery. Most of the sources talking about the atrocities do not.

7 The partition abductions of Hindu women have often been linked to the medieval history of sexual enslavement of Hindu women by Muslims."[[13]]. Mcphurphy, read what the source says carefully. It says Hindu nationalists who see Muslims as "saboteurs of the nation" and hold views of Muslims as "treacherous and idol breaking" subscribe to this view. So too with the source [[14]] which is about right wing majoritarianism in India. Far right activists often portray contemporary and historical narratives in such a way (See for example Love Jihad). It is one thing to take note of their views and "foundational myths" (like about Alauddin Khilji) (as the authors do [[15]]) and a completely different thing to present their views and myths as academic fact. To present these views, throughout the article, in WP:wikivoice and without any clarification is a clear violation of Wikipedia's policies.

8 One can also question what the topic is about in the first place. The views of the classical scholars is understandable but this article seems to confusingly straddle multiple issues especially the example and contemporary sections. By contrast Slavery and Islam is divided into different articles.

Koreangauteng, I have responded fairly thoroughly as well. My NPOV issue seems to be sustained in at least one section (though it involves at least 3) so it does not seem that WP:PG are completely met. Moreover, I did add some content from the Islam and Slavery article but despite Mcphurphy accepting that it was related to the abolition of slavery, the editor deleted it and did not reinstate it. Also, some of the issues I mention cannot be resolved by simply adding more content.39.37.184.243 (talk) 20:25, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

1. Its important to maintain a distinction between the classical Islamic views and modern Muslim views. While sexual slavery was practised in the Muslim world for 13 centuries, it were the classical Islamic jurists who were regulating it. The viewa of modern writers have no relevance to how it was practiced historically. There is a whole separate section devoted entirely to modern Muslim views where you can discuss what Muslims today think about sexual slavery and its various facets such as consent. And Kecia Ali, who is an authority[16] in the field with extensive focus on classical Sunni jurisprudence,[17] is not alone in observing the modern Muslim denial. For example, Asifa Quraishi Landes corroborates this assessment:

There is now a near universal consensus against slavery among the world’s Muslims, as is evident from the absence of substantial Muslim resistance to laws abolishing it throughout the world. Indeed, the very fact that Muslims today seem uncomfortable with the analogy between marriage and slavery itself illustrates how much norms have changed since the formative period of Islamic jurisprudence, when the analogy seemed to be a natural, almost self-evident one. It is unthinkable among most contemporary Muslims that a husband would have a female slave with whom he could have unlimited sex. In fact, both educated and lay Muslims routinely ignore the classical jurisprudence allowing concubines, often stating categorically that Islam allows sexual relations only in one situation: marriage.

— Asifa Quraishi-Landes, A Meditation on Mahr, Modernity, and Muslim Marriage Contract Law

William Muir has not beenc cited directly, since he himself is a primary source. Instead he is cited from Avril A. Powell, wherein it states (on pg 278) that the Muslim pro-abolitionist Chiragh Ali agreed with Muir that Muslims wuld not willingly abandon female slavery. I put Muir's quote at the top because it gave a good opening overview of the almost total opposition to abolition from Muslim governments and most Muslim societies.

2. This is not a point worth nitpicking over. What matters is that he defended concubinage somehow. Nevertheless, I have added "implicitly" to the text in the article.

3. "Cure" slavery is vague. When Islamic scholars talk about curing slavery, they don't mean "abolition." They talk about reducing the avenues to enslavement and also reducing abuse of slaves (although their definition of "abuse" is not the same as the rest of the world's). They all agree that in principle enslaving non-muslims is allowed. The same line in Smith's book which talks about Maliki law also mentions that a teacher from Al-Azhar considered the enslavement of infidels in holy war to be lawful.

The source of your claims about the Ottomans and Al-Azhar is another Wikipedia article. Thats not a reliable source. Besides, Smth's book itself says (on pg 140) that Ottoman ulama upheld the legality of slavery and refused Young Ottoman demands for fatwas against it.

4. Kecia Ali makes the same point about abolition as the encyclopedia you are quoting.

Abolition took place across the Muslim world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries...The processes of abolition were complex and related to, but not governed by, the situation of European colonial powers. A number of Muslim intellectuals argued for significantly restricting the practice of slavery. Rather than rejecting its religious legitimacy outright, their arguments instead hinged on the inapplicability of the institution in changed historical circumstances.

— Kecia Ali, Oliver Leaman, Islam: The Key Concepts

Yet at the same time she qualifies in another work that:

Although abolition did eventually occur, there was not a strong internally developed critique of slaveholding based on religious principles.

— Kecia Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam : Feminist Reflections on Qur'an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence

In effect it boils down to this. Slavery was never stripped of its basic Islamic legal legitimacy. And the opposition was coming from Muslim "intellectuals." These are not the same as traditional "ulama." Its these Muslim intellectuals whom Smith and the Encyclopedia are calling "Islamic abolition movements."

5. Note carefully what Smith is saying:

The rise of such ideas was linked to greater autonomy on the part of ‘lay’ leaders, as the ‘ulama’ ceased to be so important as sources of ethical teachings. The penetration of Western abolitionist ideas was significant, but most of this current of thought remained quite clearly Islamic in nature, rather than becoming purely secular. The boundaries between ‘quasi‐abolitionism’ and abolitionism proper remained contested and confused, however, with many Muslims mixing elements of the two positions for a long time. The majority of the faithful eventually accepted abolition as religiously legitimate, but pinpointing the crucial moment of transition remains difficult.

— Wiliam Clarence-Smith, Slavery and the Slave Trades in the Indian Ocean and Arab Worlds: Global Connections and Disconnections

This corroborates my argument above in Point 4. That it were not the traditional ulama but the Muslim intellectuals who were advocating abolition. And it is these Muslim intellectuals who are considered "Islamic abolitionists." You need to remember it were the ulama who had sanctioned slavery to begin with. There is no evidence that they themselves ever changed their view on the root legal ruling on slavery.

Thus, when Smith says "Islamic consensus against slavery" he actually means Muslim consensus against slavery. You need to understand the nuance in "Islamic" vs "Muslim." The (modern) Muslim consensus against slavery is not in dispute. Which is why I have written that the vast majority of modern Muslims reject slavery (despite classical Islamic legal sanction).

6. You misunderstand me. I am not against citing William Clarence-Smith. I am only against citing those aspects of his work which have been rejected by other academics. For example, his views where other scholars do not contradict him are fine to include. But where his views are rejected in book reviews we should exercise caution. Particularly on his exaggerated conclusion about the strength of abolitionist sentiment. Ehud R. Toledano said in his review of Smith's book that:

Even if we examine with good intentions the scant evidence that Clarence-Smith himself provides in his book, we cannot but conclude how very few and very far between such voices indeed were. Considered within the huge dimensions of the Islamic World and the extended period of time allowed by the author for these voices to have emerged, the phenomenon appears so marginal and ephemeral that it cannot possibly deserve to be called a "sentiment", let alone constitute a Subversive current' or be described as a Movement

— Ehud R. Toledano

In short, Toldano does not say that Smith is lying abut the existence of Muslim abolitioist sentiment. He is saying that the evidence Smith has provided is "scant" and is only evidence for abolition being a minority trend.

7. Amal Kumar Chattopadhyay is a scholar with peer reviewed books on slavery.[18][19][20].

Actually, Islamic scholars did not limit enslavement of non-Muslims to jihad. Smith himself notes (on pg 27-28) that Islamic scholars allowed Muslims to kidnap and enslave non-Muslims even without jihad. In fact, I have also mentioned in this article that kidnapping was one of the four main sources of slaves for Muslims between the 800s-1200s. Also included is the fact that Barbary pirates kidnapped at least 50-75,000 European Christian women and sold them as slaves in North Afria. (The vice versa of Moorish women being kidnapped and trafficked as slaves to Europe is also mentioned in this article). One of the most famous concubines in Ottoman history Hurrem Sultan was enslaved through kidnapping. The sources on the partition violence also use terms such as "sex-slaves", "concubines" "captives" and "slave-girls" to describe the fate of both non-Muslim and Muslim women. They also mention these women being distributed, sold and traded. Its obvious that all these things are the same things which happened to slaves in the pre-modern era. Its an extraneous requirement for us to make of the authors to say "hey this is Islamic sexual slavery." If we apply that same standard everywhere else then we can't mention the European women enslaved by Barbary corsairs or Ottomans or the Hindu women enslaved by the Delhi Sultanate or Mughals. Because the sources don't pause to clarify, each times Muslims enslave non-muslims, that "hey this is Islamic sexual slavery". Its enough that its sexual slavery. The link is obvious. Mcphurphy (talk) 22:59, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Mcphurphy, I appreciate you are being civil and will try to be brief as long text of walls only waste time. However, I do not believe that many of my points are being addressed.

1, I did not deny this point. My points are mainly about the abolition section which is not about the 13 century long views and should be about break from slavery which in turn led to abolition of slavery in the Islamic world. The 13 century long views did indeed witness a shift, one that is not mentioned in the article at all. Again, going by the abolition section of the article, one would be forgiven for thinking that slavery was not abolished in the Islamic world at all. I should also point out by "modern views" we also mean those of Abduh and Syed Ahmed who would actually be called pre-modern.

Muirs comments are still striking as they go against what actually happened. Also "almost total opposition to abolition from Muslim governments and most Muslim societies" again goes against Smith.

2 Fair enough.

3 You're reading into things here. I understand the point about quasi-abolishment but some of the sources clearly give views relating to full abolishment. The Al-Azhar cite [21] for instance do adopt a gradualist approach but can not be accused of "agree(ing) that in principle enslaving non-muslims is allowed". The source about "curing slavery" seems to be of this nature as well. Your suspicions here seem unjustified. The Tanzimet reforms were just an example of what could and infact should be included in the article but is missing.

4,5 "That it were not the traditional ulama but the Muslim intellectuals who were advocating abolition." This statement needs to be carefully considered. Smith says that the abolitionist effort 'remained quite clearly Islamic in nature, rather than becoming purely secular.

However, this seems to go against what you claim. He quite clearly says that it remained Islamic in nature. Interpreting this as meaning Muslim in nature here and in the encyclopedia is nonsensical as we're talking about Muslim societies in the first place. The point you are making is not from the sources.

Moreover both Syed Ahmed, Abduh and many of the "Muslim intellectuals" were infact trained within traditional Muslim jurisprudence. The differentiations you make between a supposedly static traditional Ulema and secular Muslim abolitionists seem to be original research and contradict what Smith is saying. Smiths introductory and concluding emphasis (noted above) is missing while other parts of his writings are extensively cited.

Moreover, even if it is understood that the traditional ulema stuck to such an uncompromising position, why are their views given so much emphasis especially coming from unnamed sources, when it was the abolitionists who succeeded? After-all this section is supposed to be about abolition, not about the traditional ulema.

6 In this case we have a dispute between two academics. Who is to say that the former is right and the latter is wrong or vice versa? Both views should be mentioned. Something you reject. And it isn't hard to find reviews in support of Smiths book and thesis.

7 All of the sources are a single pretty old academic work. I do believe that better sources should be used instead.

8 "Its enough that its sexual slavery" Yes but is it Islamic sexual slavery? especially when non-Muslims are involved in enslavement. Note my point is mainly about it's partition of India manifestations. I didn't mention the Ottomans or Barbary corsairs at all which I don't dispute. Besides the kidnappings would be Gazweh or raids (which are sometimes considered within the context of Jihad), which partition was certainly not either. In the case of viewing partition massacres as Muslim enslavement (echoing earlier Muslim activities), this is actually the view of Hindu fundamentalists and the citations given by you [[22]][[23]] make this amply clear. Pippa Virdee and Urvashi Butalia by pointing out that Muslims were enslaved as well actually seem to be arguing against the claim that we should see these examples as Islamic sexual enslavement and they make a valid point. After all why did Sikhs and Hindus behave in the same way? and it cannot be put down to mere retaliation as you sometimes seem to suggest. Hence, my query as to how relevant all of this is in the article...

Hi-- The IP editor has asked me to take a look at the article on my talk page, based on my editing history on the subject. First, nice work, Mcphurphy. There's an impressive variety of strong sources cited here. I have just one comment on this discussion for now, regarding your statement "I am not against citing William Clarence-Smith. I am only against citing those aspects of his work which have been rejected by other academics. For example, his views where other scholars do not contradict him are fine to include. But where his views are rejected in book reviews we should exercise caution." This sounds like the kind of editorial discretion which WP:NPOV doesn't allow us to use. Instead, it tells us to represent "fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic". Since Clarence-Smith's book was published by OUP, the views it contains are certainly significant for our purposes. Toledano is a prominent academic authority on the subject, so his views are significant too. If we have those two views to work with, we should reflect them both. If we have evidence of other proponents of one or the other view, we should reflect them as well, and we should do so proportionately. This means, for example, that if we use book reviews, we should avoid disproportionately reflecting reviews supporting one of the viewpoints. For example, I prefer to look at all the reviews found at JSTOR for a given book to comply with NPOV. Eperoton (talk) 03:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@39.37.184.243: You are just repeating the same refuted points over and over again. A few points:

1. Muir's comment is good to start the Abolition section with because it provides an overview of the initial Muslim reluctance to abolish slavery. I don't think even you will dispute that Muslims were initially against abolition.

2. We have to pay attention to due and undue weight. Views are to be given space in proportion to their prominence in academia. Smith is himself admitting that his view is not the mainstream view in academia. Smith says that a long line of weighty scholarship stresses that slavery was abolished because of the West and its legality was virtually uncontested among Muslims. He then adds that there was "always a contrary approach." And for that "contrary approach" he cites only himself in the footnotes.

For Bernard Lewis, ‘Islamic abolitionism’ is a contradiction in terms, for it was the West that imposed abolition on Islam, through colonial decrees or by exerting pressure on independent states.1 He stands in a long line of weighty scholarship, which stresses the uniquely Western origins of the ending slavery, and the unchallenged legality of slavery in Muslim eyes prior to the advent of modern secularism and socialism. However, there has always been a contrary approach, which recognizes that Islam developed positions hostile to the ‘peculiar institution’ from within its own traditions.2

— Wiliam Clarence-Smith, Slavery and the Slave Trades in the Indian Ocean and Arab Worlds: Global Connections and Disconnections

3. I am sorry but the modernist intellectuals do not deserve more weight simply "because they succeeded." They did not. The mainstream academic view is that abolition succeeded because of the West and with hardly any Muslim input. And no one considers intellectuals such as Sir Syed to be traditional scholars, regardless of them having some education in traditional jurisprudence or not. Smith says their abolitionist efforts "remained Islamic, and not purely secular." Well of course the likes of Sir Syed, Amir Ali and Chiragh Ali referred to the Quran (and usually sidestepped hadith and fiqh) for their views. So in that sense their arguments were not secular. But their views were rejected by all the traditional ulama for being misinterpretations which went against 13 centuries of established Islamic scholarship.

4. I do not understand what it is that you want and why you are nitpicking on 1947. At Partition, Muslims sexually enslaved non-muslim women, especially in the first Kashmir war.[24] Hindu and Sikh girls in Kashmir and Punjab were captured, distributed, sold and kept either as concubines or forced wives by Muslims. Smith says (on pg 28) that South Asian scholars do not even require a jihad for enslaving non-muslims. According to them, any Muslim raider can capture and enslave any non-Muslim. If you are arguing that sexual enslavement by Muslims during partition does not qualify to be mentioned here just because the same happened to Muslim women in India, do you also want to remove the section Sexual enslavement of Muslim women by non-Muslim men (and by extension the content of the entire History section)? After all, that can more justly be argued to not be a case of "Islamic sexual slavery" even though the sources link it to this topic by saying it was retaliation for Muslims practising sexual enslavement on non-muslims.

5. If I had enough time on my hands I would quote Smith's book section by section, region by region to show how ulama in each place opposed abolition and confined their criticism of slavery to the excesses not sanctioned in Islamic law. I would also demonstrate the hot waters the reformists and abolitionists found themselves in. Sadly, I do not have the time for that. What can be said after reading Smith's book, is that Muslim abolitionist efforts had a secondary effort in having slavery legally abolished in Muslim societies. Of course, the "weighty scholarship" (in Smith's own words) don't recognise that Musim abolitionist efforts had even a secondary impact to begin with. They attribute abolition solely to the Western pressure. So even if we were to give equal space to Smith, Lewis and Toldeano - on the balance of things the importance of Muslim abolitionists will still come out as minor in any text we produce in the article. Mcphurphy (talk) 11:29, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

MCMurphy, if you think the arguments are getting repetitive , I'll not press the issue further however I do think that points made in other slavery related articles (such as below) should certainly be considered and (as below), the views of dissenting academics be presented with attribution rather than as fact. Statements such as "hardly any Muslim input", "their views were rejected by all the traditional ulama", "being misinterpretations" seems to be a POV which should of course be mentioned but in a much more balanced and neutral fashion (keeping in mind NPOV) as in the sources given below.:

According to Brunschvig, although the total abolition of slavery might seem a reprehensible innovation and contrary to the Qur'an and the practice of early Muslims, the realities of the modern world caused a "discernible evolution in the thought of many educated Muslims before the end of the 19th century." These Muslims argued that Islam on the whole has "bestowed an exceptionally favourable lot on the victims of slavery" and that the institution of slavery is linked to the particular economic and social stage in which Islam originated. According to the influential thesis of Ameer Ali, Islam only tolerated slavery through temporary necessity and that its complete abolition was not possible at the time of Muhammad. By the early 20th century, the idea that Islam only tolerated slavery due to necessity was to varying extent taken up by the Ulema. However, it was unable to gain support among the Wahhabis as of 1980s.

to Brockopp, in the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere the manumission contract (kitaba) was used by the state to give slaves the means to buy their freedom and thereby end slavery as an institution. Some authorities issued condemnations of slavery, stating that it violated Quranic ideals of equality and freedom. Subsequently, even religious conservatives came to accept that slavery was contrary to Islamic principles of justice and equality.

"He then adds that there was "always a contrary approach." And for that "contrary approach" he cites only himself in the footnotes." This is quite clearly pure original research. Editors personal research should not enter into the discussion. The next sentence following Lewis is actually just as relevant to the article. If you can cite this as Toledano's view go ahead but this is no excuse to omit Smith's claim of a contrary approach.

"I would quote Smith's book section by section, region by region to show how ulama...." You also don't really need to do this. The article already does this aplenty to the exclusion of abolitionist material as well as his main thesis (forgive the repetition).

An important inclusion to this article would probably include the views and research of professor Jonathan A. C. Brown [[25]] who has written on both the historical and the theological aspects of the topic (including classical views). Slavery and Islam, Oneworld Publications, 2019 | 416 p | ISBN 978-1786076359. I too do not have the time to extensively quote the book but his views should certainly make for much needed balance.119.155.35.31 (talk) 16:42, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@119.155.35.31: I will try to get my hands on Jonathan Brown's book. And see what I can get from there. I will work on the abolition section today and see how I can add the reformist views without taking away from the traditionalist opposition. I strongly believe a differentiation needs to be made between the modernists, rationalists and reformists vis a vis the traditionalist scholarship (the latter has never abrogated enslavement in principle, although they often spoke out against illegitimate forms of enslavement). Mcphurphy (talk) 21:06, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

The basic problem:

- IP editor / modernists - v - Al-Ḥijr (sūrah)#Verse 15:9

Koreangauteng (talk) 23:56, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

No original research please Koreangauteng. In fact Keica Ali's sees this problem not unique to Islam [[26]] and she herself (like Asifa Quraishi) believes that slavery can be seen as a marginal and abrogatable issue within the Quran (her personal views may be added in the article like Qureshis)[[27]]. She herself is a Muslim modernist or post-modernist/structuralist, I guess. An issue with Keica Ali is that I often see her candid and frank discussions on classical scholarship cited but never her feminist views and recommendations on interpreting the Quran and Islam in general. And considering the criticism of post-modernism she gets quite a lot of traction on Wikipedia, but I digress.

As for MucMurphy, I'm not clear about your parenthetical statements. Do you mean even in the present day as opposed to ~100 years ago? Modern traditionalist scholarship (not sure if that's an oxymoron) does agree with emancipation. I've shown sources from Al-Azhar and Hizbul-tahrir for crying out loud. After all "most modern Muslims" who overwhelmingly reject slavery logically should include modern Islamic scholarship, shouldn't it? Many abolitionist arguments are quite routinely put forward. Whether some people or ISIS reject them as illegitimate is a different matter.

Also, I find the differentiation between a monolithic "traditionalist scholarship" and "modernist scholarship" quite confusing. Often times these terms are attributed from without, with the goal of legitimizing or delegitimizing certain views as they seem to here. One can actually be both as well, for example Javed Ahmad Ghamidi who studied under Maududi but has progressive views (including on slavery) or his teacher Amin Ahsan Islahi, and this is true for numerous other scholars including some abolitionists mentioned in Smiths book. This is also equally true for "traditionalist" scholars such as Maududi who are as much "traditionalist" as they are "modern". Besides, where does "traditional scholarship" or "modern scholarship" begin and end and on what basis do third parties evaluate their religious positions?

Finally the content in Brown's book may be relevant to the entire article, not just a particular section. Considering his expertise I believe he should be cited at least as much as Kecia or Smith.

P.S All of Smiths hoverlink citations mention page 27.119.155.35.31 (talk) 02:53, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

@119.155.35.31: Modern traditional scholarship, like the classical one, certainly agrees with emancipation. Its abolition which is their sticking point. The modern traditional scholarship which opposes slavery today does so only because modern Muslim states have signed anti-slavery treaties, not because they believe slavery in itself has been abolished in shariah. They indicate that Muslims are only to refrain from slavery as long as other nations honour the treaty from their end by refraining from it too.[28] Secondly, as for those who now claim that Islam had always intended to abolish slavery like Al-Azhar's 21st century Mufti (ironicaly Al-Azhar used to say the opposite before slavery ended) then such views are already covered in the last paragraph of the abolition section.

In response to the enslavement of Yazidi women by ISIS the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Fiqh Council of North America claimed that no scholar disputes the abolition of slavery was one of the aims of Islam. However, Kecia Ali finds this claim dishonest. While there was definitely an “emancipatory ethic” (encouragement for freeing slaves) in Islamic jurisprudence, slavery was never actually abolished.

— Kecia, Ali, Redeeming Slavery

Mcphurphy (talk) 08:12, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

By emancipation, I mean emancipation arguments given that advocate for gradual total abolition (and I should have mentioned this in my previous edit) like the Al Azhar Grand Mufti or this cite [[29]]

"ironicaly Al-Azhar used to say the opposite before slavery ended" Yes, it mostly did (although Abduh some and his disciples were Azhar grduates as well, and I think I've provided at least some evidence of a pre-abolition, Islamic abolitionist movement, Encyclopaedia of Islam), now it doesn't. Religious authorities shifting their positions over time is nothing new. The point to note is that the shift exists and should be mentioned as Usmani's view is.

"Muslims are only to refrain from slavery as long as other nations honour the treaty from their end by refraining from it too" This is what Taqi Usmani and your cite (which again cites Taqi Usmani) claims but not the Mufti mentioned above and I don't think the latter point is properly mentioned in the last paragraph of the abolition section at all, which makes a persuasive argument in favour of your POV. I'm not sure how you're making these totalizing comments about a unified modern traditionalist scholarship discourse considering the lack of a centralized authority in Islam. How is Taqi Usmani "modern traditional scholarship" while the the Al Azhar mufti just plain dishonest? If one wants one can go even further towards ISIS's POV and claim that Taqi Usmani's anti-slavery treaty based view is "dishonest" as well. After all if abolition is impossible, why would a momentarium be allowed?

Even Kecia Ali's claim that there was "not a strong internally developed critique of slaveholding based on religious principles" does not mean that one does not exist at all or that one does not exist now or that many scholars do not adhere to a "weak" critique of slaveholding based on religious principles. She herself views the issue of "Slavery as contested", but you seem to know the exact balance on the issue.

As for the point about ISIS the section would be more NOPV (for example) in this form rather than claiming X or Y is "dishonest"MOS:WTW especially considering that CAIR and Fiqh Council of North America are hardly the only groups to criticize ISIS and Keica Ali seems to disagree with dozens, if not hundreds of Islamic scholars. Many anti-ISIS proclamations can easily be found who (considering ISIS's actions) they do refer to abolitionist arguments:

In response to the Nigerian extremist group Boko Haram's Quranic justification for kidnapping and enslaving people, and ISIL's religious justification for enslaving Yazidi women as spoils of war as claimed in their digital magazine Dabiq, the 126 Islamic scholars from around the Muslim world, in late September 2014, signed an open letter to the Islamic State's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, rejecting his group's interpretations of the Qur'an and hadith to justify its actions. The letter accuses the group of instigating fitna – sedition – by instituting slavery under its rule in contravention of the anti-slavery consensus of the Islamic scholarly community.

Other modern views to add probably include Khaled Abou El Fadl who is mentioned in most other controversial Islam related articles and notes that "in the 20th century...Muslim countries banned slavery and "most Muslim scholars" found the practice "inconsistent with Qur'anic morality."(Abou el Fadl, Great Theft, HarperSanFrancisco, c2005. p.255). 119.155.35.31 (talk) 13:57, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

@119.155.35.31: The academic consensus is that there was no anti-slavery movement in the Muslim world and that it was abolished in Muslim countries solely due to Western pressure. Smith's theory of "Islamic abolitionism" is considered a dissenting view in adacemia. On Wikipedia its our job to represent the scholarly consensus. I have added Smith but can't give him more space than the academc consensus allows. It would be WP:UNDUE to do so. Mcphurphy (talk) 10:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

"The academic consensus is that there was no anti-slavery movement in the Muslim world ". Toledano by himself is not an academic consensus and just looking at the length you give Toledano's counterarguments compared to Smith (shouldn't some of his arguments and evidence be given as well?) only proves my point that this section is still not NPOV. I've already mentioned Brunschvig and Brockopp, and there are others as well who should be represented in the section possibly along the lines of quotations I have given above. Moreover, the misrepresentations of Smith's work still remain. For instance the entire rationalist chapter is omitted while selected parts of the book like the literalist chapter is extensively cited.

There are other issues as well. The section does not discuss (even Western aided) abolition at all and just gives random pro slavery quotes from unnamed Ulema throughout. The latter abolitionist section which goes on to discuss premodern and modern views is also still skewed and does not mention some of the scholars I have mentioned like Khaled Abou El Fadl or discuss the shift within attitutes towards slavery (even if it is conceded that it was abolished by outside pressure). Even if Muslim scholars were late to condemn slavery and were not part of its abolishment, the fact that they accepted it "fait acomplai" or with retroactive justifications is not mentioned either. The same problem exists in "Modern Muslim attitudes" where while slavery's rejection is mentioned, it is done in a persuasive POV manner while making broad generalisations about the community. I don't think the views of two feminist scholars is representative of the entirety of the Muslim community or the consensus about what the community believes and it's reasons for believing so.

We'll have to agree to disagree but I still dispute the neutrality of the section. In addition it is also inconsistent with other Islamic slavery related articles.119.155.35.31 (talk) 13:52, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

References

Break

The section on abolition (Concubinage_in_Islam#Abolition) is fairly generic to abolition of slavery in general in Islam, not specific to concubinage. I understand the two are linked, but there's also not much point in repeating across two articles. So I suggest we maintain a brief summary here, but linked mainly to Islamic_views_on_slavery#Abolitionism.VR _talk 09:07, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

The content on abolitionism in this article discusses it in reference to female slavery and concubinage. The content on Slavery in Islam is weak. Perhaps we can copy this article's section and repace the equivalent section on Slavery in Islam with this? Mcphurphy (talk) 09:10, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Propose merging this article with Ma malakat aymanukum

This article seems to deal with the same subject matter as Ma malakat aymanukum. Can someone explain the difference? If not, lets merge the articles.VR _talk 02:32, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

• Support, this article was created last month and it has lots of original research and neutrality problems. I support merging some part of it to that article.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 03:24, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Can you point out an example of "original research" please? I don't agree with making such a sweeping statement. I can verify the content of this article, sentence by sentence, from the sources cited. That is, if you provide an example of what you think is original research. Mcphurphy (talk) 03:45, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: why not delete that other article, which has very little and poor content, and leave this article be? Secondly, "ma malakat anmanukum" means "right hand possession." Thats a term for slaves in general, not specifically sex-slaves/concubines. The argument of the OP is strange because if anything, that article should be merged with Slavery in Islam. Whereas this article is a content fork on the sexual aspect of Islamic slavery. Mcphurphy (talk) 03:59, 20 May 2020 (UTC) Mcphurphy (talk) 03:37, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

  Just notice how you moved the title of the article to the less common POV title. When you use google hits you should use Google books or scholar google. Here are the results:

  • Google books

  190 results for sexual slavery in Islam [30]

  679 results for Concubinage in Islam [31]

  • Google scholar:

  2 results' for sexual slavery in Islam [32]

  25 results for Concubinage in Islam [33]

  Oh yea, and even the sources that use that term are not experts in the subject. Which proves my point that this article is built on nonsense original research SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 04:00, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi SharabSalam, I don't understand how exactly that supports your point that this article is "nonsense original research." Can you show any sentence which is not faithful to the source cited? Thanks. Mcphurphy (talk) 04:01, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

If you dont understand WP:OR, "you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article" then I am sorry for you.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 04:06, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

I just double-checked Google scholar. It shows that "Sexual slavery in Islam" produces 75,600 hits.[34] Whereas, "Concubinage in Islam" produced only 9,280 hits.[35] Mcphurphy (talk) 04:13, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

You should use quotes around the term. Slavery, sexual and Islam are treated as separated terms if they are without quotes, that means if there is a book that contains the word sexual in page 20, slavery in page 50 and Islam in page 200 its going to be shown as a result. And even if slavery in page 20 and Islam in page 50 it is going to be shown as a result even if the other words are not in the book. Google scholar gives 2 results for "sexual slavery in Islam" [36] and 25 results for "Concubinage in Islam" [37]. This is how you use google hits.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 04:20, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

There is no rule saying that. Nor is that a proper criteria. For example if we use your way of using quotes around "sexual slavery in islam" we don't see the academic sources which are obviously about Islamic sexual slavery like "Slavery and sexual ethics in Islam" or "Islam and modern-day sexual slavery" which you can see when you search without using the quotes. In substance they are the same subject. Its not necessary that every single word be the same as the title. We only need the substance of that term. Mcphurphy (talk) 04:33, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes WP:COMMONNAME, the results that you are citing are mostly not about the topic of the article. That means it is the common name.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 04:38, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

The WP:COMmONNAME is Sexual slavery in Islam. I have already shown that above. Mcphurphy (talk) 04:39, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Clearly not

• 190 results for sexual slavery in Islam [38]

  679 results for Concubinage in Islam [39]

  • Google scholar:

  2 results' for sexual slavery in Islam [40]

  25 results for Concubinage in Islam [41]

--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 04:41, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

It is. Please recheck.

• Google search — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcphurphy (talk • contribs) 06:45, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
• 4,940,000 results for Sexual slavery in Islam [42]
• 157,000 results for concubinage in Islam [43]
• Google scholar
  • 75,600 results for sexual slavery in Islam [44]
  • 9,280 results for concubinage in Islam [45] Mcphurphy (talk) 05:56, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

We can't use google results "sexual slavery" because factually incorrect. Almost none of the sources cited in this article are about "sexual slavery", they are about the slavery of women. This is also why the sources cited themselves don't use the term "sexual slavery". The term "sexual slavery" is a specific term that includes forced marriage and forced prostitution and these concepts are different from Ma malakat aymanukum. Those medieval jurists who allowed ma malakat aymanukum would not have allowed other forms of sexual slavery.VR _talk 07:21, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

We can use "sexual slavery in Islam." Moreover, you are incorrect because under Islamic law slave owners were allowed to marry off their female slaves to someone else without their consent. This fact (with its source) was previously included in the article under the consent section, although it has been removed now without reason. So forced marriages of female slaves were also allowed by the medieval jurists. Mcphurphy (talk) 07:27, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

How come few/none of the sources actually use the term "sexual slavery"? And I disagree, ma malakat aymanukum was a specific term that only applied in specific circumstances. For example, in times of peace, no medieval scholar would consider a free woman (Muslim or dhimmi) to be enslaved in such a manner, do you agree?VR _talk 07:39, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

If we rename the article to concubinage in Islam, it will limit its scope. We won't be able to cover forced marriages of female slaves. And concubinage is a very broad term. Its typically used for "mistresses" in English language. These "concubines" can either be free or slave women. Whereas, in Islam what makes concubinage legitimate is female slavery. So the title needs to include the term slavery in it somehow and also at the same time not lose its emphasis on the sexual aspect of this topic. In my mind "sexual slavery in Islam" is the best way to do this. Mcphurphy (talk) 08:02, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Which is why "Ma malakat aymanukum" is the most precise term. Literally every traditionalist scholar sought sanction from that legal concept in making whatever opinions he wanted to have.VR _talk 08:17, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

It does not refer only to sex-slaves/concubines. The phrase "ma malakat aymanukum" is a general term which includes both male and female slaves. It literally means one who you own. Mcphurphy (talk) 08:38, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

That's the literal Arabic meaning - but the term is legally used for female slaves, not male ones.VR _talk 09:17, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

• Ive temporarily moved the page to Concubinage in Islam as a compromise until we decide on the actual article name. This name has the support of most users thus far. I'm open to changing it if new consensus develops.VR _talk 09:17, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I think you should maintain the status quo. Its too early to claim there is a consensus. I don't know why you claim the term is only used for female slaves. Its used for both and is a general term for all slaves. Concubinage is not suitable because it does not leave space to include forced marriages of slave-women by masters (which is part of classical Islamic law and history). And concubinage sounds like "mistress" whereas Islamic concubinage depends on the factor of female slavery. So, using the term "sexual slavery" is the best way forward. Mcphurphy (talk) 10:01, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
    • Concubinage is more suitable because that is what the article is mainly about. The article could still state that concubines were forced into marriages or that female slaves were forced into concubinage, so it is suitable. Sexual slavery in Islam could be about many things. It could possibly include homosexual sexual slavery of the Greco-Roman type (condemned by classical Islamic law) and its prevalence between masters and slaves in the Islamic world (for example Malik Ayaaz) [[46]]) but that's not what the article is about.119.155.36.109 (talk) 16:03, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
      • ^That's a great point by 119.155.36.109.VR _talk 17:19, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Vice regent How exacty is that a "great point." And IP, how will the article still be able to talk about orced marriages of female slaves? Concubonage is a narrow term meaning sexual relationship between slave and her master. When a master forces his slave into a marriage they are not having sex. So your argument is incorrect. Sexual slavery is a broader term which includes both concubinage and forced marriages of female slaves. Mcphurphy (talk) 08:16, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Forced marriage of a concubine to her master is very relevant under the heading of "Concubinage in...".VR _talk 10:31, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

@Vice regent: Wrong. The sources say that a master can forcibly marry his slave to someone else without her permission. So if he can marry her off to someone else, how is she his concubine? So this isn't concubinage. Its forced marriage of a slave by their master to someone else. This is why "sexual slavery" is better than "concubinage" - which refers to a sexual relationship solely between the slave and her master.

Yet in sharp contrast to their silence about slaves’ consent to sex with their owners, scholars paid significant attention to consent to marriage. They agreed unanimously that an enslaved female’s consent was never required for a marriage contracted by her owner. Al Shafii (d. 820) is typical: “He may marry off his female slave without her permission whether she is a virgin or non-virgin.” It strains logic to suggest that an enslaved woman is subject to being married off without her consent or against her will to whomever her owner chooses but that he cannot have sex with her himself without her consent.

— Kecia Ali, Concubinage and consent, p. 149

Mcphurphy (talk) 11:22, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Again, Concubinage doesn't imply that the concubine can't be sold to another man. For example, in ancient China a concubine could be married by her owner to another man for a price:

Zhou Lu had purchased a concubine Liu Shi, because his main wife had not given him a son. But the concubine and main wife didn't get along so after two years Zhou's mother ordered him to sell the concubine...his mother had ordered him to sell her in marriage...He had already sold her in marriage for money.

Yet wikipedia covers this under Concubinage#China, not under sexual slavery.VR _talk 11:47, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

As far as I know about Wikipedia policies, it is not a valid argument to refer to what other articles in Wikipedia say or don't say as a precedent. After all they may be wrong and need improvement. "Concubinage" by definition is the sexual relationship between a master and his slave, it does not include his marrying her off forcefully to someone esle. Mcphurphy (talk) 11:50, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose merge with Ma malakat.... The latter article is about a Quranic term referring to slaves in general, though many editors seem to be confused about its scope and have added much material to it that deals not with the term, but more generally with slavery in Islam and so belongs in other articles. Eperoton (talk) 23:41, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. And its also my fault for mixing the renaming discussion with the merge discussion.VR _talk 01:49, 21 May 2020 (UTC)