Talk:Islamic views on concubinage

This article needs appropriate references

Since this is an article about an Islamic topic, it is needed to have citations from The Quran and Hadith.

Some thoughts

@Vice regent:

The article is well-written. Some critical pointers however, which can also be treated in mainspace:

• "Concubinage was also practiced by wealthy men in pre-Islamic Buddhism and Hinduism", " Scholars have pointed out that women's lack of choice in marriage was commonplace in medieval times in the Muslim world and Western Europe", "Similar argument was made by Christian abolitionists when asked why Jesus did not condemn slavery": These have apologetic undertones and I would recommend removing them.
• There are some accidental issues WRT sourcing. For example, the article says "God promises to double the reward of a man educates a concubine, frees her and then marries her as his wife", but I can't find any mention of a concubine specifically either in Hamel or in the actual hadith. The Arabic word used here is جارية jāriya, which as I understand it refers to all slave women including but not limited to concubines. This is really a very minor issue in the big picture, but it never hurts to be closer to the sources.
• My feeling is that the first paragraph in the "Permissibility and number of concubines" section is too biased towards historically fringe anti-concubinage views. Al-Razi is certainly a significant figure, but the fact that the vast majority of classical exegetes and fuqaha disagreed with him and considered concubinage permissible needs much greater emphasis than a single sentence. More generally, my impression is that information on the theological and jurisprudential justification of the institution could use more expansion, and differences in views among the madhhabs should be presented in a more structured way.
• As for the Qarmatians, I'm very hesitant to call them Muslim at all—I'm frankly not sure if they themselves considered themselves Muslim, since it was their creed that Muhammad ibn Isma'il would abrogate the age of Islam.
• Why Umar and Hasan (ibn Ali, I presume) specifically? These figures predate the creation of Islamic law as we know it. Ottoman or Safavid practices might be more relevant.
• Are Jonathan Brown and Kecia Ali really relevant figures in the whole of contemporary Islam? I would recommend restructuring this section with a focus on e.g. Al-Azhar, Sayyid Qutb, and the Twelver authorities at Najaf, which I think should stand for the three most significant authorities in Islam currently.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 14:18, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Karaeng Matoaya I have to disagree with you. The tone of the article is apologetic and spends more time trying to explain away the existence of concubinage rather than give the readers bare facts about how it existed. This article fails WP:NPOV. Most sections fail to adequately summarise scholarly viewpoints in proportion to their prevalence. Undue weight has been given to known apologist Jonathan Brown who confesses that his wiews are not widely shared in the academic community. The article also recurrently claims without basis that the Quran encourages men to marry their concubines. I have studied enough of Islamic law to know this is a WP:FRINGE claim. But the article presents it as fact. Undue weight has been given to minority viewpoints even where traditional scholarship is discussed. For instance, the minority view that large scale concubinage was discouraged has been given undue weight. The section on inheritance (under "other") is written inappropriately. It starts with the claim that "concubines could inherit" as if this is an unqualified right and only later tells the reader that its entirely dependent upon the master's will. A more appropriate way to word it would have been that a "Unlike a wife, a concubine does not have a right to inheritance. However, she may receive a share at her master's bequest." Overall, the article concentrates on making the best appear out of a bad situation. Mcphurphy (talk) 00:23, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Hmmm, I certainly don't agree with the overall characterization of this article. Jonathan Brown is an academic, you're entitled to your opinion on him but for Wikipedia's purposes he's considered a credentialed scholar. The article does cite a source for the marrying concubines claim, I think you might be right that it's outside the mainstream but I'll double check the source. The part about large scale concubinage was put in its proper context and didn't seem to be given undue weight. The inheritance section could use some expansion but I don't believe the word "could" implies that it's a right. Jushyosaha604 (talk) 02:49, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Jushyosaha604 about Jonathan Brown. I'm puzzled by Mcphurphy's comment about him, and I wonder if it may derive from a misunderstanding of a comment I made on another page. I was referring specifically to his argument that the notion of darar (harm) does "the same moral and legal work" in regulating non-consentual sex in Islamically licit relations as the notion of consent does in modern law. In his book, he outlines it in the section Consent and Concubines and he goes on to state in the next section that his modern interlocutors have tended to not be convinced by this argument. In general, he is a prominent academic scholar, and the author of a rare general book on the subject of this article, so I see no reason why his views shouldn't get significant weight. As a personal note, academic authors tend to exaggerate the level of support their own views have in the field, and the frank assessment given by Brown on this point is a credit to his intellectual honesty. Eperoton (talk) 04:17, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

The page should be called "Islamic views on concubinage with slaves"

A very peculiar form (and that's an euphemism) of concubinage is presented by the article. To avoid confusion the page should be renamed "Islamic views on concubinage with slaves". --2.41.87.75 (talk) 22:47, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

In Islamic law, concubines were synonymous with, and the same thing as, slaves, as no free woman would be allowed to live in a sexual relationship with a man without being married to him. In Islamic law, therefore, it was taken for granted that a concubine was a slave, since there was no such thing as a free concubine. But perhaps the article could be phrased so that the reader understands that.--Aciram (talk) 22:54, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

As this source points out, Western scholarship has translated this into the English term "concubine". The very first sentence of the article already says In classical Islamic law, a concubine (Arabic surriyya) was a slave-woman with whom her master engaged in sexual relations. Aciram is correct that concubinage was not allowed with free women.VR _talk 05:06, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

In Islamic law, concubines were synonymous with, and the same thing as, slaves That basically constitutes one reason more to rename the article "Islamic views on concubinage with slaves". --2.41.87.75 (talk) 01:17, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

The page should be protected

The page is vandalized again. This is often the case. I don't know how to revert it. It is a sensitive subject, so it would save time if the page was protected. --Aciram (talk) 20:34, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

POV fork

This article crosses over the WP:POVFORK line with sexual slavery in Islam, especially given the frequent use of "slavery" in this article and the proposal above to rename it.

There can be two articles if the topics are truly different, but at the moment there is way too much overlap with the sexual slavery article. I would expect to see, in each article, a summary of the other one preceded by a {{main}} link. ~Anachronist (talk) 19:23, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

As I said on the other talk page, this article was meant to narrowly cover only how Islam views concubinage. An alternative title for this page could also be "Concubinage in Islamic law". The historical practice of concubinage in the Muslim world is different from Islamic views on it, and should be covered elsewhere. This separation mirrors Islamic views on slavery and History of slavery in the Muslim world. It also why we have a separate article on Islamic military jurisprudence and Islam and war.VR _talk 23:34, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

@Vice regent: If Islam in all its forms forbids concubinage, what is the sense of having an entire page about “Islamic views on concubinage”? The only reason I can think of is that, despite concubinage is forbidden but sexual slavery is (was) not, you simply want to talk about “Islamic views on sexual slavery”, but presenting it as “Islamic views on concubinage”. --Grufo (talk) 23:56, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

@Vice regent: In spite of the good intentions, there is nevertheless a large overlap between the two articles, and that should be corrected. I am not arguing to merge them, but if they are separate topics, it should be clear how they are separate. Currently it is not clear. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:20, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

I'll clarify that I don't really care how the article is titled. My main concern is the content. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:21, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

@Anachronist: what about my proposal that we have two articles: Islamic views on concubinage (focused on theological and legal issues) and history of concubinage in the Muslim world (focused on actual practice spanning several centuries and continents)? The latter article would contain a very brief summary of the former as background. This separation mirrors Islamic views on slavery and History of slavery in the Muslim world.VR _talk 21:24, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

That's fine. Would Sexual slavery in Islam be recast into the history article then? ~Anachronist (talk) 21:27, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it already contains some good historical coverage despite the NPOV and organizational issues it has.VR _talk 21:30, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

• Anachronist you mentioned here that I would be a good candidate to help fix WP:POVFORK (and other) issues and I'm happy to do so. How do you suggest we move forward? This article was intended to focus on jurisprudence - what issues do you see here? I can also list it at Wikipedia:Peer review to get external feedback. Likewise, we should have the same discussion at Talk:Sexual slavery in Islam to discuss what should be done to fix that article. I have like a tonne of scholarly books on these topics available and I'm very willing to get them into shape. Thanks, VR _talk 02:32, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 14 October 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: NOT MOVED: After reading the discussion consensus appears to be to not move due to the number of users opposing a move. Primary support discussion comes from a single user. There does appear to be some basis for a discussion on merging articles. (non-admin closure) Spekkios (talk) 22:36, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

---

See also: Talk:Sexual slavery in Islam/Archive 3, Talk:Sexual slavery in Islam/Archive 4, Talk:Sexual slavery in Islam/Archive 5, and Talk:Sexual slavery in Islam/Archive 6

Islamic views on concubinage → Islamic views on sexual slavery – The page was born as a WP:POVFORK from Sexual slavery in Islam, presenting the exact same topic but using an apologetic title. Grufo (talk) 17:38, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

The discussion below developed in Talk:Sexual slavery in Islam, after noticing that this page was created as a sort of spin-off from Sexual slavery in Islam. If we apply here the same policy that we applied there (and there are no reasons why we shouldn't) this page should be renamed to "Islamic views on sexual slavery".

Please do not edit the moved discussion. --Grufo (talk) 23:40, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Moved from Talk:Sexual slavery in Islam § "Islamic views on concubinage"

 – Grufo (talk) 23:40, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't see why we should force the articles to have the same name. What makes more sense is for an article to reflect the sources that it uses. For that one, looks like the sources use the term "concubinage" more commonly, which I guess makes sense given the article's scope and subject matter. Jushyosaha604 (talk) 02:18, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Many of the sources in both articles overlap and that is not how Wikipedia works for articles that cover the same subject:

Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) as topic-specific naming conventions on article titles, in the box above.

— WP:TITLE § Deciding on an article title

--Grufo (talk) 16:55, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

I am not even convinced that the topics are separate enough to warrant two articles, as both discuss sexual slavery. There's a large overlap at the moment, giving us a WP:POVFORK situation. That doesn't mean that each article expresses opposing points of view, it means that the focus of each should be narrowed down, if they are indeed separate topics. Each article should contain a summary of the other one with a link to it. ~Anachronist (talk) 19:47, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Whether merging or not is another topic (a legitimate one). But what I am talking about is the fact that if the problem of calling sexual slaves “concubines” in a page title emerged here, the same exact problem emerges there – now with the further addition of inconsistency in title names. --Grufo (talk) 21:58, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Both articles also use the term "slave concubinage". According to a comment on Talk:Islamic views on concubinage, Islamic law does not distinguish between a concubine and a slave. If that is true, then the terms are interchangeable in the context of this topic. ~Anachronist (talk) 22:11, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

@Anachronist: concubine, in the Islamic context, means a female slave with whom her male master (and no other) could engage in sexual relations. Sexual slavery includes such concubinage, but also other things that were never allowed by Islam: sexual enslavement of men, prostitution of female slaves, child pornography etc. This is why we have dozens of scholarly sources that discuss "concubinage" in Islam (see here and here) but are hard pressed to find many reliable sources that use the term "sexual slavery" in relation to Islam. See also my earlier comment. Ideally we should have two articles Islamic views on concubinage and history of concubinage in the Muslim world. This separation mirrors Islamic views on slavery and History of slavery in the Muslim world.VR _talk 23:28, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

— End of moved discussion —

@Vice regent: The fact that sexual slavery in Islam followed some rules where some things were allowed and others were not does not mean it was not sexual slavery. All slave systems had some kind of rules where some things were allowed and others were not. --Grufo (talk) 23:40, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

• @Anachronist: concubine, in the Islamic context, means a female slave with whom her male master (and no other) could engage in sexual relations. One form of sexual slavery could include such concubinage, but other forms of sexual slavery were never allowed by Islam: sexual enslavement of men, prostitution of female slaves, child pornography etc. This is why we have dozens of scholarly sources that discuss "concubinage" in Islam (see here and here) but are hard pressed to find many reliable sources that use the term "sexual slavery" in relation to Islam. See also my earlier comment. Ideally we should have two articles Islamic views on concubinage and history of concubinage in the Muslim world. This separation mirrors Islamic views on slavery and History of slavery in the Muslim world.VR _talk 00:26, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

• Support – I am the one who asked for the rename. See my arguments above. --Grufo (talk) 17:43, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. The topic of this article, and the WP:COMMONNAME, is "concubinage" not "sexual slavery". There are about 40 reliable sources supporting the current name and almost none supporting the proposed name. See this table and these additional quotes. I can also paste all this evidence below. VR _talk 18:20, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
• Many sources used in this article have "concubinage" in their title, but none have "sexual slavery" in their title (emphasis added):
  • Norman, York Allan (2013). "Concubinage". In Josef W. Meri (ed.). Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia. Psychology Press. pp. 169–170.
  • Cortese, Delia (2013). "Concubinage". In Natana J. DeLong-Bas (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women. Oxford University Press.
  • Brockopp, Jonathan E. (2001). "Concubines". In Jane Dammen McAuliffe (ed.). Encyclopaedia of the Quran. Vol. 1. p. 396-397.
  • Ali, Kecia (2017). "Concubinage and Consent". International Journal of Media Studies. 49: 148–152. doi:10.1017/S0020743816001203.
  • Katz, Marion H. (2014). "Concubinage in Islamic law". In Kate Fleet; Gudrun Krämer; Denis Matringe; John Nawas; Everett Rowson (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE. VR _talk 20:28, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
    • It doesn't look like that to me. The following are all sources used by the article:
      • Jonathan E. Brockopp (2006). "Slaves and slavery". In Jane Dammen McAuliffe (ed.). Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. Vol. 5. Brill. p. 60.
      • Kathryn Hain. Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History. Oxford University Press. p. 336.
      • Pernilla, Myrne (2019). "Slaves for Pleasure in Arabic Sex and Slave Purchase Manuals from the Tenth to the Twelfth Centuries". Journal of Global Slavery. 4 (2): 222–223. doi:10.1163/2405836X-00402004.
      • Bernard K. Freamon. "Slavery and Islam, written by Jonathan A. C. Brown". Journal of Islamic Ethics. Brill publishers.
      • Sikainga, Ahmad A. (1996). Slaves into Workers: Emancipation and Labor in Colonial Sudan. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-77694-4.

The phenomenon is exactly the same phenomenon presented in Sexual slavery in Islam, where a consensus had already been established in favor of referring to it as "sexual slavery" and not "concubinage". --Grufo (talk) 20:58, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

None of the above titles contain the term "sexual slavery", and in fact your second title contains the word "concubines". If "sexual slavery" is WP:COMMONNAME, surely you can provide a few sources with that term in the title? And there was never consensus for "sexual slavery" anywhere.VR _talk 21:04, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

References

None of the titles need to contain that exact term. "Slaves for Pleasure" and "Sex and Slave Purchase Manuals" are close enough. And even the titles don't need to contain an alternative phrase if the content of the sources clearly refers to sexual slaves. If the meaning is contained in those sources, then there is no problem with Wikipedia summarizing the meaning as "sexual slavery". ~–Anachronist (talk) 21:09, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

@Anachronist: in cases where we have a clear WP:COMMONNAME used by sources, we shouldn't need to resort to "summarizing the meaning".VR _talk 21:15, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Apologies for my confusion. I forgot that this was about the title of this article, not the usage of the term "sexual slavery" in general. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:17, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Using "concubinage" as a synonym of "sexual slavery" is definitely not "a clear WP:COMMONNAME" in English. And indeed half of the sources use only slave/slavery but no concubinage; while one uses concubinage but feels that is not WP:COMMONNAME enough for avoiding to specify "slavery" too. If as it seems this page was created as a WP:POVFORK exactly for presenting "sexual slavery" using the word "concubinage" I also expect the presence of some cherry picking in the choice of the sources. If even considering the cherry picking a considerable amount of sources still does not use concubinage at all but uses only slavery, and given that the same identical discussion already happened in Talk:Sexual slavery in Islam and ended in favor of "sexual slavery", the rename is automatic for me. Finally, it is not exactly normal that a Wikipedia page gets created reproposing a discarded title for discussing about the same topic just for the sake of keeping a discarded title. --Grufo (talk) 21:39, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Sorry which sources in this article don't use the term "concubinage"? Point me to a source and I can name you the page number where that term is used.VR _talk 21:51, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Did you have a look at § General sources? These are all sources from the page:

• Jonathan E. Brockopp (2006). "Slaves and slavery". In Jane Dammen McAuliffe (ed.). Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. Vol. 5. Brill. p. 60.
• Pernilla, Myrne (2019). "Slaves for Pleasure in Arabic Sex and Slave Purchase Manuals from the Tenth to the Twelfth Centuries". Journal of Global Slavery. 4 (2): 222–223. doi:10.1163/2405836X-00402004.
• Bernard K. Freamon. "Slavery and Islam, written by Jonathan A. C. Brown". Journal of Islamic Ethics. Brill publishers.
• Sikainga, Ahmad A. (1996). Slaves into Workers: Emancipation and Labor in Colonial Sudan. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-77694-4.
• Ali, Kecia (2010). Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam. Harvard University Press.
• Brown, Jonathan A. C. (2019). Slavery and Islam. Simon & Schuster.
• Clarence-Smith, William Gervase (2006). Islam and the Abolition of Slavery. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-522151-0.
• El Hamel, Chouki (2013). Black Morocco: A History of Slavery, Race, and Islam. Cambridge University Press.
• Freamon, Bernard K. (2019). Possessed by the Right Hand: The Problem of Slavery in Islamic Law and Muslim Cultures. Brill.
• Gordon, Murray (1989). Slavery in the Arab World. Rowman & Littlefield.
• Lewis, Bernard (1992). Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-505326-5.
• Toledano, Ehud R. (23 May 2013). "Abolition and Anti-slavery in the Ottoman Empire: A Case to Answer?". In W. Mulligan (ed.). A Global History of Anti-Slavery Politics in the Nineteenth Century. M. Bric. Springer.

--Grufo (talk) 22:40, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Which of these sources doesn't use the word concubine? I went through in order you presented and every single source uses the term "concubinage" to describe this article's subject:

• Jonathan E. Brockopp (2006). "Slaves and slavery". In Jane Dammen McAuliffe (ed.). Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. Vol. 5. Brill. p. 60. says "The Qur'an condones the use of female slaves as concubines..." (page 58)
• Pernilla, Myrne (2019). "Slaves for Pleasure in Arabic Sex and Slave Purchase Manuals from the Tenth to the Twelfth Centuries". Journal of Global Slavery. 4 (2): 222–223. doi:10.1163/2405836X-00402004. says "Some of these slaves became their masters’ concubines and gave birth to their children..." (page 197)
• Bernard K. Freamon. "Slavery and Islam, written by Jonathan A. C. Brown". Journal of Islamic Ethics. Brill publishers. says "The last chapter is somewhat of an afterthought, taking on the historical legacy of concubinage."
• Sikainga, Ahmad A. (1996). Slaves into Workers: Emancipation and Labor in Colonial Sudan. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-77694-4. says "Concubinage is recognized by the Sharia, which contains elaborate rules regulating it."
• Ali, Kecia (2010). Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam. Harvard University Press. says "the institution of concubinage (milk al- yamin), which legitimized sex between a man and his own female slave" (page 8)
• Brown, Jonathan A. C. (2019). Slavery and Islam. Simon & Schuster. says "...a female slave whose master has a sexual relationship with her (the term concubine is generally used in Western scholarship, but in this book I will use the term ‘slave-concubine’)"

I can go on and on, but it seems to me that you haven't read the sources.VR _talk 23:29, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

@Vice regent: Rhetoric fallacies are easily detectable, there is no sense in trying. You wrote “Many sources used in this article have "concubinage" in their title, but none have "sexual slavery" in their title”. I gave you a list, then you answered (emphasis mine) “Which of these sources doesn't use the word concubine? I went through in order you presented and every single source uses the term "concubinage" to describe this article's subject”. Of course the term “concubinage” can be used once a source has made it clear that it is sexual slavery, it's not a forbidden word, it's just a word inadequate to describe the phenomenon alone. I am pretty sure that in more than one case a master even fell in love for his slave, but should we create an “Islamic views on love” page for that kind of love, or can we still stick to sexual slavery? What I fail to understand is why, if even the Arabic sources never use at all anything similar to “concubinage” for referring to it but use “slave girls”, Wikipedia should call it concubinage. We even already had this identical discussion, and it already ended. --Grufo (talk) 00:29, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Because WP:TITLE says "Article titles are based on how reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject", so Arabic sources are not relevant for this discussion.VR _talk 00:56, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't look to me that there is any lack of English sources that refer to it using slavery, rather the opposite. --Grufo (talk) 01:08, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

None of the sources you provided refer to it as "sexual slavery". All of the sources you provided use the word "concubinage" (see this).VR _talk 01:48, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Fallacies are easily detectable… None of the last page sources I provided uses “concubinage” (or even anything close to “concubinage”) in the title – which is what you requested – while all of them use slavery in their title. Some titles use paraphrases for sexual slavery (such as “Slaves for Pleasure”, “Sex and Slave Purchase Manuals”), other instead talk about sexual slavery within the broader context of slavery in general, and as such they have no reason to name their main topic “sexual slavery”. --Grufo (talk) 02:02, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

• Rename to Islamic views on slave concubinage. Most sources are discussing concubinage in the context of slavery. Brown (2019) explicitly uses "slave-concubine" as an accurate description: "...a female slave whose master has a sexual relationship with her (the term concubine is generally used in Western scholarship, but in this book I will use the term ‘slave-concubine’)". Wiqi⁽⁵⁵⁾ 12:18, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Wiqi55 for helping to find a compromise title. It is true that Brown prefers "slave-concubine"; it is also the preferred term in the book Grufo cited: Slaves for Pleasure in Arabic Sex and Slave Purchase Manuals from the Tenth to the Twelfth Centuries. But some other sources (Encyclopaedia of the Quran, Encyclopaedia of Islam etc) prefer the term "concubine" without the slave prefix. Still, Grufo, would it be an acceptable compromise to move this article to Islamic views on slave concubinage and move Sexual slavery in Islam to Slave concubinage in Islam? VR _talk 20:58, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Compromise in which sense? What is that we are compromising? “Sexual slavery” is a neutral title that describes the reality well, what would the reason be for using an alternative title that implicitly assumes the point of view of free men? Slaves whose life consisted in remaining reclused in a prison with less freedom than domestic slaves had few to do with concubinage. The Arabic sources don't have the concept of concubinage, but only that of slave girls, and when Brown uses “slave-concubine” he implicitly assumes the point of view of free men (which was also society's point of view), for whom their relationship was somehow comparable to the Western idea of concubinage (i.e., sex without commitment). For the slaves it was definitely not concubinage (they had to commit a lot). If we talk about what Islam thinks about the phenomenon of “slave girls”, as an institution, as this page does, we should not assume any privileged point of view. So no. --Grufo (talk) 22:05, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Grufo, sexual slavery implies coercion: "forcing them to engage in sexual activities". However, in the Islamic context we find that coercion is still an open question. Using "sexual slavery" favors the coercion side in the consent/coercion debate which is not neutral. By contrast, concubinage encompasses both voluntarily and involuntarily sex. Wiqi⁽⁵⁵⁾ 10:53, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Okay, let us put a bit of order. However you call it, the phenomenon is just one, because the sources talk about one single phenomenon without making distinctions. Second, calling the issue of consent “an open question” is very generous when the only source that goes in that direction is the lonely ancient voice of Al-Shafi'i, while both traditional schools and the most important modern scholars state the opposite. Even giving Al-Shafi'i credit, one might easily argue “But who will guard over the slave?” – “God, of course, slaves had no means to obtain justice in this world”. That whole § The issue of consent section in the end only re-affirms that “The consent of a slave for sex, for withdrawal before ejaculation or to marry her off to someone else was not considered necessary, historically” – by the way, that section is from Sexual slavery in Islam, not from Islamic views on concubinage (another sign of the WP:POVFORK nature of this page). And indeed arguing in favor of the necessity of consent for having sex with a a slave that was purchased exactly for sex sounds quite silly (“apologetic” would be the right word). That said, I would like that we agree on one thing at this point, which is that in the Islamic context no source makes distinction between sexual slavery and what some people here want to call “concubinage”. I saw that you read Arabic. Just out of curiosity, how are the “slave girls” called in the Arabic sources that defend the necessity of consent? Even if we wanted to be very generous and call the issue of consent “an open question” one thing is definitely not an open question: the girls in the relationships we are talking about needed to be slaves. --Grufo (talk) 13:09, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

It isn't that "some people here want to call it concubinage", but rather plenty of reliable sources do. Also reports of female slaves rejecting a potential buyer can be found in medieval sources. For instance, the mother of Mus'ab bin Thabit refused to be sold to Amr bin al-Hasan because she didn't like him (karahathu). The Arabic word (karahathu) is often used when a free woman rejects a marriage proposal. Wiqi⁽⁵⁵⁾ 08:50, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

There are sources that use concubinage in their title as well as sources that do not. Wikipidia was in front of a choice and this choice ended in favor of choosing “sexual slavery”. Indeed, many sources feel that “concubine” is inappropriate and propose alternatives, such as “slave-concubine”, or “slave for pleasure” – while on the other hand no source objects against calling it “slavery”. You might want to read the previous discussion, since this discussion looks like a poorer copy of that – even with the same arguments from the proponents of “concubinage” (part of the sources, Hagar, etc.). Plus, the Arabic sources have no notion of the Western idea of concubinage. The very fact that this page was created by the same persons who lost the argument on the other side after the discussion ended constitutes an obvious case of WP:POVFORK.

I do believe that the world's history of slavery is full of cases of nice behaviors. Was it the mother of Mus'ab bin Thabit's right to refuse, or did she just happen to be with nice masters? I know your answer (“an open question”) – although you might be interested in this passage from Kecia Ali: “The status of concubine was informal; however, law and custom allowed a master to have sex with any of his (unmarried) female slaves. It was also insecure: a concubine could be freed and married by her owners, or she could be sold off, so long as he had not impregnated her.” If this is not sexual slavery but concubinage, why was being a slave a pre-requirement for being a “concubine”? Even assuming that the slave's voice mattered, why would a free woman who wanted to become a concubine be forced to become a slave first, to hear that her voice finally mattered? The answers to all these absurd questions are simple for me: it was sexual slavery, and all kinds of sexual slavery in every part of the world involve some forms of “concubinage” with the slave (after all “concubitus” means “having sex”), and every slave could encounter nice masters from time to time. --Grufo (talk) 16:54, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

This is probably not the right place for discussing the consent/coercion dispute, per WP:NOTFORUM. Feel free to ask your questions at user talk. Wiqi⁽⁵⁵⁾ 22:58, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

@Wiqi55: Thank you. --Grufo (talk) 16:41, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

References

• Oppose. The sources do assert that concubinage is way different from slavery; "The institution of concubinage , in contrast to ordinary domestic slavery, forms a specific category of bondage, on account of its resemblance to the institution of marriage."[1]. VR's sources includes highly credible works by Encyclopaedia of the Quran and Encyclopaedia of Islam both by BRILL and The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women. These should be given much more weigh than others. Moreover, I could find the following source which I believe support the current title:

– "Concubinage In Islamic Law" Syed, Mohammad Ali (1 February 2012). The Position of Women in Islam: A Progressive View. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-8504-0.

Though there are plenty of other sources using/explaining the term in the body. --Mhhossein ^talk 18:18, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, sexual slavery is a distinct form of slavery. The source says that it is a particular form of bondage distinct from ordinary domestic slavery (e.g., housekeepers, nursemaids, etc.). I also agree with that. Which means that your argument is null. --Grufo (talk) 18:32, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Well, even you are now drawing a distinction between slavery and concubinage. So, I don't know how my comment can be described as null. --Mhhossein ^talk 05:06, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Also, this book by Harvard University Press makes a clear distinction between concubinage and sexual slavery by comparing the former with marriage. --Mhhossein ^talk 06:05, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Maybe both the book you cite and my answer are not very clear. The distinction you are talking about is between sexual slavery and ordinary (non-sexual) slavery, not between concubinage and sexual slavery. --Grufo (talk) 12:45, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

• I am confused as to how the articles "Islamic views on sexual slavery" and "Sexual slavery in Islam" will differ. If this is a POV fork, why aren't we at AFD? Srnec (talk) 00:50, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. The fact that we have sexual slavery and concubinage indicates the two terms aren't exactly interchangeable. The proposer's notion that concubinage is only understood in the modern concept of casual cohabitation between sexual partners is not particularly accurate: Hagar, for example, has been repeatedly described as Abraham's concubine. She definitely wasn't his friend with benefits. Given the length and becoming of the Islamic civilization, the position towards and practice of such phenomenon did exhibit both (sexual) slavery and the more nuanced Ma malakat aymanukum. It thereby serves an encyclopedic purpose to address both. Assem Khidhr (talk) 01:18, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Well, technically the fact that we have two pages only means that the same persons who were minority in Sexual slavery in Islam decided to create this page after the debate in the other page ended in favor of “sexual slavery”. Hagar was definitely not a friend (neither with benefits nor without), she was Sarah's slave. Also according to the story the fact that Hagar had sex with Abraham was not exactly accepted by Sarah, as it might have been in the context of a society that fully accepts sexual slavery. Finally, Wikipedia discuss about “Ma malakat aymanukum” under Islamic views on slavery. The only thing that does not find much space here is “concubinage”. --Grufo (talk) 02:14, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. Sexual slavery and concubinage are different but as the I.P. says above, we can rename this article, "Islamic views on concubinage with slaves". As an afterthought, I feel we should rename this article, "Islamic views on concubinage with those captured and enslaved".-Baamiyaan2 (talk) 14:51, 16 October 2021 (UTC)Sockpuppet.VR _talk 01:14, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

You mean that theoretically Wikipedia could have a page named Islamic views on sexual slavery and that page would treat a different topic? --Grufo (talk) 23:05, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

I am influenced by what Assem Khidhr says above.-Baamiyaan2 (talk) 02:50, 17 October 2021 (UTC)Sockpuppet.VR _talk 01:14, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Someone will take that as a withdrawal. --Grufo (talk) 13:21, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose moving to Islamic views on sexual slavery, but support merging with Sexual slavery in Islam under the title Concubinage and sexual slavery in Islam – The problem that lies at the root of all the confusion and misguided discussion here is that while from a Western-European point of view, concubinage and sexual slavery are two completely different things (the first referring to relationships outside of marriage, the second referring to relationships of sexual ownership), in the Islamic context they mostly come down to the same thing (concubinage only being allowed with slaves, and relationships with sexual slaves being almost by definition concubinage, with a few exceptions), and yet still retain different connotations inherited from the English words 'concubine' and 'slave'. The result of this is that the connotationaly softer term 'concubinage' is greatly preferred in reliable sources (as impressively shown by VR here; see also Google Scholar [2] vs [3], this despite the former being pushed up massively by the ISIL/ISIS phenomenon). Nevertheless, the term "concubine", even in the Islamic context, conjures up images of powerful women such as al-Khayzuran, the mother of Harun al-Rashid who was sold to Harun's father al-Mahdi as a slave, but who went on to become the de facto ruler of the Abbasid caliphate for 14 years. But obviously, the millions of women who were sexually enslaved throughout the history of Islam generally met a very different fate from al-Khayzuran. More specifically, a concubine that managed to become an umm walad gained a number of special rights, and if they were concubine to the rich and powerful, they could at times become quite powerful themselves. But many concubines did not manage to become an umm walad, and most were not concubine to particularly rich and powerful men; they were sex slaves, with all the dark meanings that term signifies. Yet history tends to favor the rich and powerful, and tends to make the poor and downtrodden disappear: whence also the more common use of the term 'concubine' by historians: al-Khayzuran et al. is what they actually have sources for to write about. Moreover, precisely because concubinage and sexual slavery largely came down to the same thing in the Islamic context (the exception would be the young boys that were used as sexual slaves, as evidenced e.g. by the poetry of Abu Nuwas, an aspect that is notably missing from our article ghilman), there was also a massive phenomenon of sexual slavery (incomparable, e.g., to anything in Western-European history). I think we owe it to our readers to make that very clear by explicitly mentioning all of this in the article text (explaining the convergence of the two terms in the Islamic context), as well as by including the term "sexual slavery" in the title. Excluding either term from the title is misleading; whence, I think, the protracted discussions. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 01:09, 21 October 2021 (UTC) Of course, I'm talking about what I think ought to be done: I personally don't have time to actually perform the proposed merge. But I can always hope someone else will, right?

  Thanks @Apaugasma: for your valuable input. What you said is correct, yet there is still the matter of WP:COMMONAME. It would be one thing if "concubine" and "sexual slavery" were relatively equally used in sources; but, in the context of pre-modern Islam, RS use "concubine" far, far, more often than "sexual slavery". The fact that "sexual slavery" is used only to describe ISIS, not historical Islam, suggests its usage here is an anachronism. We really ought not to do something WP:reliable sources don't. Still, Wiqi55 above suggested the term "slave concubinage", which does find significant usage in RS (albeit less than "concubinage" without the slave prefix). Would you support that? It would also be more WP:CONCISE. The other problem with "sexual slavery" is that it includes things like forced prostitution, sexual enslavement of men, child pornography etc - things that are categorically rejected by mainstream Islamic law. I don't see RS conflating the practice of concubinage to these other practices.

  As for the merger, I think we should have separate articles on this concept in Islamic theology/law vs its historical practice just as we do for slavery: Islamic views on slavery and History of slavery in the Muslim world. Sexual slavery in Islam is already WP:TOOBIG (126,631 bytes), so it is ill advised to merge another 41,499 bytes to it.VR _talk 01:45, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

  My view is that the overlap between concubinage in Islam and other forms of sexual slavery in Islam is far too great to have two separate articles on it. Other encyclopedias simply don't cover the broader topic of sexual slavery in Islam (remember that we have more than 6.000.000 articles, whereas average encyclopedias have only c. 100.000), but if they would, there's no question that they would do it in one article. Grufo is right that the two articles were essentially split to form a POV-fork, which should not have happened (though it happened after a failed request to move to Concubinage in Islam, which in turn should not have been rejected). The (admittedly labor-intensive) solution is to radically trim both articles and to create one good article from the best parts of both.

  Since sexual slavery is actually broader than concubinage, the two should not compete with regard to WP:COMMONNAME, but do note that many reliable sources on this subject use both the words 'concubinage' and 'slavery' in their titles (see, e.g., here). Moreover, I've already explained above why the word 'concubine' will be found much more often. Titles should also reflect the subjects of their articles, so it's really quite obvious that an article that would cover both concubinage and other forms of sexual slavery should have both terms in the title. "Slave concubinage" seems to be jargon (only 179 hits) and should be avoided in titles.

  The real question is thus not the article title, but whether we should have one article covering both concubinage and other forms of sexual slavery. The argument that some forms of sexual slavery are rejected by Islamic law is beside the point: some of the forms you mention simply have no relevance in an article on Islam, and others would just give occasion to point out how they are regarded in Islamic law. I think it is generally ill-advised to separate article subjects into 'Islamic views on foobar' articles and 'History of foobar in Islam' articles: the 'Islamic views' are in large part historically determined, and the 'history of' will always in large part be a history of Islamic views. It's another recipe for POV-forks, which generally originate from a failure to create one good article that covers all significant bases in an NPOV way and without bloat. I'm not saying that is an easy thing to do, I'm just saying that it's the only right thing to do. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 03:56, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

  I'm saying that we should only have an article on "concubinage in Islam"; there should be no article on "sexual slavery in Islam" because reliable sources don't treat this as a coherent topic. Where are the RS that cover all forms of sexual slavery in Islam? You're exactly right when you say that non-concubine forms of sexual slavery "simply have no relevance in an article on Islam". Lumping together concepts not lumped together by RS is a form of OR.

  "but do note that many reliable sources on this subject use both the words 'concubinage' and 'slavery' in their titles." I agree, with is why I, and Wiqi55 suggested using "slave concubinage". I agree that less sources use it, but those that do make it a point of using it consistently throughout the body. By contrast, "sexual slavery" is only either in passing, or is used to refer to ISIS, not premodern Islam.

  With regard to trimming, I disagree. All this content is reliable sourced and encyclopedic, why get rid of it? The best practice on wikipedia is to let content grow and spin out articles as that happens.VR _talk 04:36, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

@Apaugasma:

“the root of all the confusion and misguided discussion here”

If you have read the dispute under Sexual slavery in Islam (and apparently you have), you should know that extra-marital sex being allowed only with slaves was never a root of confusion, but a clear point throughout the entire dispute (maybe with few exceptions of some confused editors, due to the fact that using “concubinage” for “sexual slavery” can indeed be misleading). The dispute was about what title name Wikipedia should have for that, not about what it was.

“in the Islamic context they mostly come down to the same thing (concubinage only being allowed with slaves, and relationships with sexual slaves being almost by definition concubinage, with a few exceptions)”

Concubinage (i.e. extra-marital sex) with slaves is what in English is normally called “sexual slavery”.

“'concubinage' is greatly preferred in reliable sources (as impressively shown by VR here”

That had already been contested (see [4] and [5], and many other comments which you will have to search on your own)

“there was also a massive phenomenon of sexual slavery (incomparable, e.g., to anything in Western-European history).”

How “also” a massive phenomenon of sexual slavery? What else was there “also”? You mean the few girls that ended up in high-ranked harems and exceptionally held some position of power after surviving the same massive phenomenon of sexual slavery?

“Excluding either term from the title is misleading”

Every form of sexual slavery involves concubinage. What exactly would not using “concubinage” mislead to?

“Grufo is right that the two articles were essentially split to form a POV-fork, which should not have happened (though it happened after a failed request to move to Concubinage in Islam, which in turn should not have been rejected)”

Thinking that “it should not have been rejected” is exactly what made Vice regent feel entitled to WP:POVFORK the page, and you should not enable that. It was the decision of a participated discussion, despite an oppressing pressure from some editors, which apparently hasn't stopped yet, even after one year. Calling the page Concubinage and sexual slavery in Islam would be misleading, as who reads the page superficially, or reads only the page title, might think that there were “concubines” and “sex slaves”. And in general using “concubinage” for sexual slavery is always disrespectful towards the slave and should be avoided. The sources allow us to avoid it, and I think we should, at least in the title.

“The real question is thus not the article title”

I wish that was the case, but the only issue is the article title (the reason behind the dispute, the reason behind the WP:POVFORK, and so on). If there were other reasons, the WP:POVFORK would discuss a different topic instead of being a clone.

--Grufo (talk) 04:47, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Grufo said "Every form of sexual slavery involves concubinage." That's false. Bacha bazi is sexual slavery, but no one has called it "concubinage". AFAIK, concubinage always implies a male-female relationship, and historically the concubine was always a woman. By contrast, sexual slavery can involve any combination and "sexual slave" can be any gender.VR _talk 06:14, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

References

“Bacha bazi is sexual slavery, but no one has called it "concubinage".”

I agree, concubinage historically tends to be used for heterosexual relationships. That is because when the Romans created the institution of concubinage only heterosexual couples were allowed use it.

“AFAIK, concubinage always implies a male-female relationship”

Despite my previous answer, this is not exactly true. Notably, if you live in France today and you are in a homosexual couple, you either marry each other or you become each other's concubine (see the French law about concubinage).

“By contrast, sexual slavery can involve any combination and "sexual slave" can be any gender”

That is a point for “sexual slavery” in the title, as it allows the page to have also small sections about less influential forms of sexual slavery too.

--Grufo (talk) 14:24, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

FYI, concubinage pre-dates Rome: ancient Mesopotamians had long been practicing concubinage with their female slaves. Biblical accounts of concubinage with slaves Hagar, Bilhah etc also predate Rome.VR _talk 14:39, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

The usage of the word does not predate who invented the word. We started to use “concubinage” for ancient Mesopotamians only after the Romans invented the word. And thus we tend to follow “somehow” the meaning of who invented the word. --Grufo (talk) 14:45, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

"Concubine" means what WP:SCHOLARSHIP says it means, and it can be defined differently in different contexts (as do many words of the English language). The roots of the word are fascinating but don't dictate its meaning for all times. See also misnomer.VR _talk 14:51, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

You don't even need WP:SCHOLARSHIP for using concubine for a sexual slave, a Wikipedia article could be about a sexual slave and call them “lover” at some point in the article body, as long as the page and the title have made it clear that it is sexual slavery. --Grufo (talk) 14:55, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

@Apaugasma:, But many concubines did not manage to become an umm walad Could you provide a source for this? Seems impossible to quantify. Moreover, special rights were also given through obligatory/recommended manumission contracts. Wiqi⁽⁵⁵⁾ 04:01, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Hello Wiqi55! Responding to your ping. That statement is WP:BLUESKY. It's impossible indeed to quantify, but not to qualify: it's obviously true that some forms of contraception (non-penetrative sex for one) are highly effective, that some people are infertile, etc. But I'm by no means an expert on this topic, and the actual literature would probably give a much better insight into these issues. In any case, I think that the two main antagonists here (hey, I like both of you, but it's about the wiki content, right?) are coming to the subject with far too many preconceptions and vested interests to neutrally report what is said in that literature. Someone with a good background knowledge, but without a penchant for Islamic or anti-Islamic apologetics, would be needed to bring these articles up to par. I think that until then we're all sort of wasting our time here. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:12, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. Wikipedia is meant to be an encyclopaedia for everyone (not just Muslims). That to Muslims, a concubine is a slave is surprising to many non-muslims. Many societies have had women labelled as "concubines" in English whose status was less than a wife, but were still part of the family, and were not slaves. It is therefore useful to have an article on concubines in Islam.
  
  Not all sex-slaves are concubines (if you run a brothel or an escort agency, where the prostitutes are slaves, they are not concubines).-- Toddy1 (talk) 16:12, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

@Toddy1: “That to Muslims, a concubine is a slave is surprising to many non-muslims”: You mean “support” (based on your argument)? This particular article is about sexual slavery, not concubinage. Or you want all the content related to sexual slavery to be moved to Sexual slavery in Islam and leave here only the concubinage that involved free people in Islam? You should know that the latter is virtually nonexistent, but if someone creates an article about concubinage, it will definitely be correct that Wikipedia calls it “concubinage”. --Grufo (talk) 16:26, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

No of course I oppose the move. Let me illustrate with a story. When General Kitchener's army liberated Khartoum in September 1898, one of Kitchener's Sudanese soldiers went to a house in Khartoum and left with his sister who was a sex-slave there; the girl's owner tried to drag the girl back to the house, so the soldier used his rifle to shoot and kill his sister's owner. If you understand that some rich Muslims had concubines, and that concubines were slaves, then this story makes a lot more sense than it otherwise would.-- Toddy1 (talk) 16:50, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

I honestly did not understand the meaning of your story, or how the story constitutes an argument in support of having two duplicate articles on Wikipedia. --Grufo (talk) 17:29, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Grufo, what you are proposing is to change this article into a semi-duplicate of the article on Sexual slavery in Islam. I am opposed to that. Concubinage is not necessarily the same as sexual slavery. This article is meant to be about the Islamic view of concubinage, which is that it is OK, providing that the woman is a slave and the person who has sex with her is her owner. Many non-muslims do not share this view. Stories from the past, such as the one above or that of Suryadevi's revenge on Muhammad Bin Qasim, make perfect sense if you understand that to be a concubine of a Muslim man is to be a slave. This is why the soldier was willing to kill to rescue his sister, and why Suryadevi lied to cause Qasim's death.-- Toddy1 (talk) 18:47, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

If changing the title would make this a semiduplicate of Sexual slavery in Islam, then it is already a semiduplicate, and leaving the current title will not help much. --Grufo (talk) 20:33, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

You appear to have misunderstood (a) concubinage and (b) your own proposal.-- Toddy1 (talk) 20:59, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

• Support Apaugasma alternative proposal; while I see the issues regarding WP:POVTITLE that the proposer is pointing towards, I have to agree with Apaugasma as the broader issue is caused by the defined scope of the article, and not the title. To add to what they say, articles in the form "X views on Y" are often problematic from an NPOV point of view, and their proposal will neatly fix this as well. BilledMammal (talk) 23:59, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose the original proposal and oppose Apaugasma's alternative proposal. I think merging the articles is a non-starter cause we already have an issue on Wikipedia with the articles being too long, plus the articles have clear distinct topics. As for the idea that "X views on Y" articles are problematic, I see many articles like that: Islamic views on slavery, Christian views on slavery, Jewish views on slavery, Jewish views on marriage, Religious views on same-sex marriage, etc. As long as the article is properly sourced and written from a NPOV, should be fine. Jushyosaha604 (talk) 17:58, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
• Comment: I need to clarify further how wrong the proposed title is technically. Reliable sources should always be consulted for such content disputes. This book is describing "concubinage" as being the intercept of marriage and slavery in an Islamic context. Sexual slavery is far different since, as the names says, this type of slavery is meant for sex. This is while concubinage has a marriage spirit in it. The book futher says: "Having thus established the vital element differentiating male and female roles in marriage, the Umm returns to concubinage to draw a firmly gendered distinction between active and passive that ties marriage and concubinage together."

Ali, Kecia (30 October 2010). Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam. Harvard University Press. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-674-05059-4. Retrieved 24 October 2021.

--Mhhossein ^talk 11:28, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Nice try. Linking a Google Search of the term “concubinage” in a book is a textbook example of cherrypicking. I could do the same using the word “sexual” in the same book and this would be the result. Then sentences like this will start to appear: “These texts on concubinage address only sexual relations with slaves of the opposite sex, forbearing mention of men's sexual use of male slaves, even to forbid it …”, and so on. Also, if you start actually reading that book, you will discover that bringing sexual slavery and marriage near is due to the Islamic idea of marriage being not so different from sexual slavery: “[In marriage] sex is another crucial claim that ideally was mutual, but in legal thought ultimately one-sided. In contrast to Jewish Law, which defined conjugal obligations primarily as the wife's claim on the husband, in Muslim marriage sex was the husband's claim on his wife”. This one is also a nice one from that book (p. 56 – emphasis mine):

Elsewhere, he directly compares marriage and the purchase of a female slave for sex: ‘Some of the companions of Abū Ḥanīfa said: We find it objectionable that a [woman's] sexual organ (farj) be made permissible so cheaply (bi shay' yasir). We said, What is your view if a man buys a slave girl for a dirham, is her organ lawful to him? They said: Yes. We said: You have permitted a sexual organ and added [ownership of] the [slave girl's] body for a trifle’. Shafi'i's answer here relies on the samenes and the difference between a wife and a slave girl.

--Grufo (talk) 13:55, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

The Islamic idea of marriage being not so different from sexual slavery? That's so strong of a claim and isn't by any means a matter of mainstream academic consensus. Besides this being OR, one should be careful while letting this out not to amount followers of any religion, let alone a global major religion, to slave owners, especially given the Western connotation of the word. One can imagine how dangerous such claim might be as a potential source for Wikihate. FWIW, an honest examiner of the slavery problem in Islam might do good by referring to the Quran 90:11-17:

If only they had broken through the barrier! ۝ And what will make you realize what the barrier is? ۝ It is to free a slave, ۝ to give food in times of famine ۝ to an orphaned relative ۝ or to a poor person in distress, ۝ and—above all—to be among the believers and urge each other to perseverance and compassion. ۝ [adapted from The Clear Quran, Mustafa Khattab's translation]

Assem Khidhr (talk) 01:24, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

The claim is not mine – although the paraphrasis you quoted is. You can write a complaint to Kecia Ali, or to Mhhossein, who proposed Kecia Ali's book in support (which is an important book by the way). --Grufo (talk) 04:14, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

@Grufo: You really don't need to reply every single comment made here. However, your OR comment should not be considered a response to my argument. The book is authored by Kecia Ali, a professor of religion at Boston University, and the book is published by the Harvard University press. The portion of the book you selected is not supporting your claim rather it is further proving your suggested title is not accurate at best. Had you quoted the full paragraph you would notice the author is rebutting that comparison in the same paragraph on P. 56. --Mhhossein ^talk 04:20, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

You are both saying the same thing: in early Islam, concubinage (meaning a man cohabiting with his female slave) was comparable to marriage.VR _talk 04:35, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose The Islamic concept of concubinage (now extinct in mainstream Islam along with slavery) is clearly distinct from sexual slavery. Every culture's internal perspective on both slavery and sexual relations is unique. As noted by Jushyosaha604, there are many articles like this. If the internal terminology of Islam for such practices are akin to "concubinage" then that is the appropriate terminology with which to frame the discussion. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:41, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

The “internal terminology of Islam” does not possess the concept of concubinage and uses “slave girls”. Actual concubinage in Islam has always been forbidden and carried a strong social stigma (“zināʾ”). The same stigma was present in Christianity, although with some tolerance towards life-long concubinages that resembled marriage in every aspect. --Grufo (talk) 11:40, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

I see that you've written this, once again, from your niche perspective that concubinage=cohabitation. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:04, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Na. Concubinage = Lesser marriage / Non-institutionalized marriage / Quasi-marriage. But we shouldn't even discuss about what concubinage is, because “the internal terminology of Islam”, as you called it, does not use concubinage, but plain and simple slavery. --Grufo (talk) 14:46, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Well that's just your slightly opinionated voice popping out to say hello. You presume much about the conventions of the past, and the nature of the bondage and consent in Islamic concubine-style arranagements. Islam's internal terminology doesn't directly translate to any word in the English language. This is called nuance. Slavery itself is a rather dull term. Any one of any reading is perfectly well aware, for instance, that Roman slaves could be both horribly mistreated or equally elevated to incredible stature. 'Modern slavery' also has its own distinct meaning. And then there are the euphemisms, such as bonded servant and indentured servitude. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:23, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

I honestly don't know who was in worst conditions as a slave, whether a Roman sex slave or sex slave trafficked and kept prisoner in a harem in the Middle East (I think it would be a good competition). How does this influence our discussion though? --Grufo (talk) 17:38, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Because there is no such thing as "plain and simple slavery", and the fact that you can't conceive of a concubine in a Ottoman harem, for instanc,e as being better off than a trafficked Roman sex slave exposes both the lack of nuance in your thinking and your bias. If you knew even the slightest thing about harems and concubines across the ages then you would know full well that such individuals could often wield extraordinary political power, wealth and influence. Hence nuance. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:56, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

I honestly think you have no way to know whether an Ottoman sex slave had a better life in average than Roman sex slave, and I frankly think that it is quite irrelevant. We define slavery using a minimal requirement, which is being someone else's private property. Both the Roman and the Ottoman sex slaves fully met this criterium, and both the Roman and Ottoman society knew well the concept of freedom. --Grufo (talk) 18:12, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Quran abolished slavery. Stop lying.

This is the biggest lie about the Quran I ever read. Slavery is Pharoah. Quran is Moses. In the Quran God destroyed the Pharoah. The Quran ordered the emancipation of slaves. This is a huge lie. Quran is not Sharia law. They are two different things. Big lie. 2001:8F8:183F:1EA9:E527:D2E:44F3:A350 (talk) 15:26, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Any proof or reference you might wanna share? عبدالرحمن بن ركن الدين (talk) 11:37, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Error in translation of Quranic verse

Surah An Nisa stated as the proof of validity of having sex with captives. This is factual error. from the verse 22 onward it clearly states which women are "not marriageable" without allowing fornication out of wedlock. "Also˺ forbidden to you for marriage are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, your paternal and maternal aunts, your brother’s daughters, your sister’s daughters, your foster-mothers, your foster-sisters, your mothers-in-law, your stepdaughters under your guardianship if you have consummated marriage with their mothers—but if you have not, then you can marry them—nor the wives of your own sons, nor two sisters together at the same time—except what was done previously. Surely Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful. Also ˹forbidden are˺ married women—except ˹female˺ captives in your possession. This is Allah’s commandment to you. Lawful to you are all beyond these—as long as you seek them with your wealth in a legal marriage, not in fornication. Give those you have consummated marriage with their due dowries. It is permissible to be mutually gracious regarding the set dowry. Surely Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise.

Quran does not allow extramarital sex on one end and permit it on another. Wahabi sect is the one responsible for this. Please correct this article. 77.77.222.158 (talk) 00:54, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

What is the correct translation? VR _talk 01:30, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

"Lawful to you are all beyond these—as long as you seek them with your wealth in a legal marriage, not in fornication. "

The subject can be discussed at length but it is suffice to say that is not allowed to have sex with captives. 77.77.222.158 (talk) 21:33, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Merge to Slavery page?

Judaism doesn't have a concubinage page, called Plagesh (makes it harder to reach for english audiences). This page is also just so bloated that its more addressing discourse then academic research. WOuld make more sense as a subheading to slavery page Mohammed Al-Keesh (talk) 03:12, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Regarding your first argument, see WP:OTHERCONTENT. Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:40, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Certainly not. It is a subject within Islamic slavery, of course, but with enough information and relevance to have its own main page. This is a major topic, with high relevance in itself. To merge it only appears like a way to hide the subject. --Aciram (talk) 10:30, 1 October 2024 (UTC)