Talk:History of concubinage in the Muslim world/Archive 6

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A different “split”

In one of my last comments, where I was answering to another editor's enthusiasm for a new article named Sexual slavery in Islamic terrorism, I said that I am not competent enough for proposing such split, although I think it can be done. However, immediately afterwards, Vice regent has come to my aid and has added to the page a paragraph named ISIL, which seems perfectly suited for the new article. I have then created a draft for Sexual slavery in Islamic terrorism using the recent material from Vice regent.

The draft is only a very pale beginning of a proper article, but objectively there is plenty of material about sexual slavery practiced by terrorist groups who claim a theological justification for their activities without any endorsement from a large part of the Islamic community. I believe that the new article should contain only sexual slavery practiced by organized terrorist groups recognized as such, if it is practiced by regular governments' soldiers or as a result of mass violence it should not be listed there (which does not mean it must be listed here). However, since the page Sexual slavery in Islam currently does not contain much about terrorism but is only focused on historical non-sectarian sexual slavery, most of the material would need to be written from scratch – which also mean that we are not talking about a proper split.

This “split” would also guarantee that the current page Sexual slavery in Islam will remain clean from POV-pushing from who wants to equate Islamic views on slavery to those of Islamic terrorism.

Personally I cannot work alone on the new page, but I will be happy to collaborate.

Differently than this page the new page does not involve theology. There are only two requirements that need to be met for listing something in the new page:

• The organization must have practiced sexual slavery
• The organization is recognized as an Islamic terrorist group

If you do agree, please improve the draft. If you don't, no problem, just explain below why you don't.

--Grufo (talk) 19:39, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

I agree with splitting this topic roughly into two articles: Concubinage in Islam and Sexual slavery in Islamic terrorism. This is what Karaeng Matoaya suggested as well. I understand this to be the position of Mar4d above too. Ping @Andrewa: for his opinion.VR _talk 20:40, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

I am sorry, Vice regent, this is not the place where to discuss if renaming the current page or not. Consider also that the only paragraph that will likely be split from here is the ISIL paragraph that you have created just yesterday (the rest needs to be written from scratch), so this discussion will have basically no consequences on the current page. --Grufo (talk) 21:08, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose - I have to disagree with you here Grufo. There is no reason why the ISIL content can't be included here. They claim to do whatever they do in the name of Islam. So a split is unnecessary. Mcphurphy (talk) 02:06, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

@Mcphurphy: I thought about a possible objection like this. This is why I have proposed as criterion not whether what they claim is in accordance with the Islamic law or not, but simply being “recognized as an Islamic terrorist group”, independently of how actually “Islamic” is what they say. --Grufo (talk) 02:35, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose: As stated in this source, "classical Islamic law accepts both slavery as an institution and the sexual use of female slaves," which was practiced by Muslims for centuries, long before ISIS or modern Islamic terrorism existed. (t · c) buidhe 03:48, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose: As stated by Buidhe above.—Dr2Rao (talk) 01:42, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
• Let us see how the draft develops. It is currently a bit short but well written and very well referenced. I cannot see any possibility of a successful AFD nomination to delete it. There could be a possibility of merging it into this article, but that would improve this article a great deal if done properly, so still worth doing. I note with approval that terms such as concubine do not yet appear. Perhaps it could be the start of eliminating this confusing term from the current article as well, see #My more recent position above. I'm not even sure this is a split at all, as it doesn't seem to copy any text from this article. See also Draft talk:Sexual slavery in Islamic terrorism. Andrewa (talk) 08:53, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Related discussion

This might be of interest. There is currently a related discussion, at Concubinage (not in Islam, just plain concubinage), currently involving only me and Vice regent, started after a massive edit (simply WP:POVSOURCE in my opinion) concerning the connection between concubinage and sexual slavery – further edits have gone in the same direction in the meanwhile. --Grufo (talk) 17:34, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Pinging editors that have been involved in this discussion: @Mcphurphy: @Vishnu Sahib: @Bolanigak: @Dr Silverstein: @Dhawangupta: @Andrewa: @Vpab15: @Rreagan007: @Karaeng Matoaya: @HaEr48: @Dr2Rao: @AnandaBliss: @JorgeLaArdilla: @Episcopa: @Usernamekiran:

Grufo, this seems a bit like WP:CANVAS. The conversation there has nothing to do with Islam. It is also considered a violation of WP:CANVAS to selectively ping people. There are some notable absences in your list of pings - @Mar4d:, @AhmadF.Cheema:, @Firman.Nst:, @Jushyosaha604: - and all of them happen to be users with whom you disagree.VR _talk 17:45, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Truly some people complain less than others. --Grufo (talk) 18:11, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Vice regent then you are also guilty of canvassing (I don't mean to offend you, it is just an observation).—Dr2Rao (talk) 18:13, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Theological rape

I am having trouble forming sentences so I am putting this here for suggestions. These references say that theological rape of non-Muslim females is permitted as per Islamic scriptures. How to make sentences using these sources?—Dr2Rao (talk) 09:14, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

References

Neither of the two sources says that "rape of non-Muslim females is permitted as per Islamic scriptures". What they say is ISIL believes that to be the case, and that this interpretation of theirs has been condemned by mainstream Muslims. From Washington Post

Of course, the Islamic State's worldview falls far out of the scope of mainstream Islam, and has been repudiated by clerics across the Muslim world. Some analysts argue that it's less important to focus on the Islamic State's religiosity than the political and economic underpinnings of the jihadist insurgency...

VR _talk 11:28, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Vice regent, Then I am sure that you can mention that it is their (ISIL) belief which is repudiated by Islamic clerics across the world, using both sources which I believe are reliable sources.—Dr2Rao (talk) 12:06, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Proposed split

#Requested move 30 August 2020 above contains lots of good research that should go into improving the article. Or perhaps articles as I suggested.

I commented Both concubinage and slavery seem to have been practised, and this seems well documented, and they seem to be different things. Is any of that really in doubt? and have received no comments in reply. But I don't want to argue from that silence that there is no disagreement, it was a very busy RM.

Concubinage in Islam is currently a redirect with no significant history. I suggest that it should be carefully and gradually built into a well-focused and well-referenced article on what reliable secondary sources in English refer to as concubinage in the context of Islam.

Once this is complete, we can restructure and in need rewrite this article. Andrewa (talk) 23:46, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Andrewa, thanks for continuing the discussion. Unfortunately, the RM was closed less than 24 hours after your last comment, so could not reply. What, in your opinion, is the difference between "Concubinage in Islam" and "Sexual slavery in Islam"? VR _talk 23:58, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

I have no opinion on this at present. I'm listening to what various people are saying and trying to sort out the various POVs from the relevant material.

But that doesn't mean that I have no opinion as to whether or not there is a difference. It would be very surprising if there were not, and there does seem to be, and the interest in which term is to be used in the article title also suggests it very strongly.

What both the English and other language (particularly in this case Arabic of course) words meant historically is content for the article(s) but not relevant to their scope and title(s). In deciding scope and title we are simply interested in current English usage.

Much of the previous discussion related to various past and current interpretations of what is permitted in Islam. It seems that the status of what is now in English called a slave and what is called a concubine, both in the context of Islam, may have changed significantly over the years and now differs from place to place. This material (if sourced, and these sources need not be in English, unlike those used to decide title and scope) is exactly what is needed to structure the article(s) in an encyclopedic, informative and NPOV fashion and giving due weight to the various opinions.

As to exactly what the difference is, can you tell me? Or are you suggesting that there is no difference? Andrewa (talk) 00:39, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@Andrewa: I did not answer your question before because when I saw it the discussion was already closed, but I do have doubts that Islam has ever allowed any kind of sexual intercourse outside sexual slavery (besides marriage, of course). So there is no difference (or better the word “concubinage” is misused in this context). It seems to me that the proponents of “concubinage” simply want to use a word that does not carry any stigma – since it means something else – to define the women (often non-Muslim) sexually enslaved in the past with the blessing of the religion. --Grufo (talk) 00:45, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@Andrewa: from my research, I see one difference is in the usage of the terms. Reliable sources typically use the term "concubine" to refer to a woman in a sexual relationship with a man to whom she is not married. This happened with Abraham and Hagar, it also happened with Muhammad and Maria al-Qibtiyya, and Ottoman sultans (e.g. Suleiman_the_Magnificent#Wives_and_concubines) - in each of these cases WP:RS use the term "concubine". By contrast many reliable sources use the term "sexual slavery" to describe ISIS and Boko Haram - both terrorist groups who claim religious sanction - committing sexual crimes against women.VR _talk 00:58, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@Vice regent: Since we are talking about Islam (and not about Muslim-majority countries or kingdoms), if you see a difference between a “concubine” and a sexual slave we must find a differentiation within the scriptures. Are the women in the harems subjected to a different regulation compared to other kind of sexual slaves? Or do the imams instead, when asked about a related question, answer consulting exactly the same Quranic passages? Does the Quran have some verses concerning sexual slaves and some other different verses concerning concubines? Does Islam differentiate between a sexual slave and a concubine? I believe you know very well the answer to these questions. As I had already said in a previous comment, I believe that the term “concubinage” appeared in literature with this strange meaning only because the current meaning of the English word “sexual” is relatively recent, while the studies about sexual slavery in Islam are older. “Sexual” in the past meant only “pertaining to the gender of people”; the modern meaning of “pertaining sexual intercourse” appears only after 1929. So basically there was no word in the Western world for the Islamic phenomenon, and the weird shift of meaning should be considered as a linguistic relic that served as a fallback, and that today would be only misleading. --Grufo (talk) 01:23, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@Grufo: the sources that refer to concubinage in Islam are from 2016, 2017, 2020 etc (see dates in #Part1). There is no "linguistic relic" as you claim.VR _talk 01:30, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@Vice regent: You have not answered my question: how do the scriptures differentiate between a sexual slave and a concubine? Which passages refer to sexual slaves and which passages refer to concubines? --Grufo (talk) 01:41, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@Grufo Contrawise, it could be argued that proponents of the term wish to make a deliberate stygmatic connection between historical Islamic concubinage and modern criminal activity like the Rochdale Sexual abuse scandal (as made by Jorge) but this line of argument would only lead to casting aspirations. Arguments from opposers also make it seem like there was something unique about Islamic concubinage as opposed to Jewish or Chinese concubinage when the sources say that such activities were normative. In the end your accusations are attacks on the sources themselves.

Overall, I'd be in favour of contacting an expert on the subject though I'm not sure what the criteria for that is.

P.S You're starting to get personal again with comments like "I believe you know very well the answer to these questions" and God help me if I'm going to have to discuss source less and OR interpretations of the Quran with you again (We have a separate article for that [1] though it has problems as well). Why is scripture needed here except in the context of what the RS sources say. Why do the up to date RS repeatedly use the term concubines especially in the title? Can you provide evidence that academia prefers the unused term "sexual slavery" to concubinage. The closest you came to this was providing an 85 year old quote from Epstiein talking about ambiguities in Jewish concubinage (Again though, the term "sexual slavery" is nowhere to be found). Besides the Islam used here is in context of the broader Islamic civilization, not just the religion. On further thought it should probably be titled Concubinage in the Muslim or Islamic world to make this clearer. 119.152.130.30 (talk) 01:59, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

“Contrawise, it could be argued that proponents of the term wish to make a deliberate stygmatic connection between historical Islamic concubinage and modern criminal activity”

So, we should call “slaves” only the black people enslaved in the U.S. in the last centuries and we should not call slaves the classic Roman servi, right? Or do you have any particular reason why only classic Islamic slaves should be called with an apologetic name? And if we do treat ancient Islamic slaves exactly like all the other ancient slaves we are doing “a deliberate stigmatic connection”, right? Have you told the reliable sources about it, who obstinately keep defining what you call “historical Islamic concubinage” as slavery?

When people get enslaved today in criminal activities do you not make a connection in your mind with the slavery from the past? I do. That is because slavery is an obsolete thing. But you are telling us that we should absolutely not connect any modern sexual slave with the classic Islamic sexual slaves, right? We should better connect them with the Roman slaves (or Egyptian, or Maya), but not with the ancient Islamic ones. Okay…

As with all types of slavery, despite your attempt to romanticize the Islamic phenomenon, we are often in front of dramatic situations, and not just folklore. Often they were women that belonged to another land, that worshipped different gods and that had a normal life before ending up enslaved.

By the way, the discussion about how to call “Sexual slavery in Islam” is closed. Now we are talking about a possible split. Since you are here I could ask you too. Do you support the split? If yes, how does Islam differentiate between a sexual slave (or similar construct) and a concubine? --Grufo (talk) 02:38, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Nice sources for the term "sexual slavery" as usual and no we would not connect this [2] to pre-modern Incan concubinage.

The term is neither apologetic when used either for Chinese or Islamic concubines but I'll doubt I'll get you to agree by now. Karaeng Matoaya explained this better than I can and in the past you have made false/mistaken statements such as "Concubinage happens between free people". Many romances mention concubines who were enslaved so I really fail to see your point about their lives which could range from being murdered to being a mother of a king. Maybe you should inform the sources that they are wrong about what a concubine is. Clearly you know much more than them. Your entire involvement here started from and continues to be in search for a "bias" that would be more likely found in a mirror. Though you make other arguments this accusation continues to crop up from your side and only serves to hinder productive discussion.

And I would support a split if only to create a more coherent and sctructured article. 119.152.130.30 (talk) 04:28, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. The proponents have not given any evidence of a differentiation in the scriptures between “sexual slaves” (or a similar construct) and “concubines”. --Grufo (talk) 01:42, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Do you have any sources to back up your claim of "no differentiation in the scriptures"? VR _talk 01:46, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

You are right. Text corrected. --Grufo (talk) 01:50, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Those scriptures are in Arabic, are they not? Andrewa (talk) 05:28, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Certainly, but that does not exempt Wikipedia from clarifying the alleged differentiation between sexual slavery and concubinage within the scriptures. --Grufo (talk) 13:52, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: Andrewa, an article on "Concubinage in Islam" would certainly meet WP:GNG, as there are many reliable sources that cover concubinage in Islam in great detail. Wikipedia:Content_forking#Related_articles allows for different articles on topics that are "distinct but related".VR _talk 03:06, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

If the split is only for talking about the same persons treated in this article but avoiding to mention their condition of slaves I strongly oppose it. Andrewa, what kind of persons should the new article talk about according to you? Should slave-concubines be treated here or there? --Grufo (talk) 03:35, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

If these slave-concubines to which you refer are both slaves and concubines at once, then they should be covered by both articles. Is it possible to be both at once? Or is it one or the other? Or are you saying that its the same thing? Surely not the last, but I'm just checking. Andrewa (talk) 05:28, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Context is important. Wikipedia's article on Sexual slavery defines the very terminology thus: "Sexual slavery and sexual exploitation is attaching the right of ownership over one or more people with the intent of coercing or otherwise forcing them to engage in sexual activities". Therein lies the problem with using that title. Are concubinage in Islam and "sexual slavery" the same"? Mar4d (talk) 04:39, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

It sounds to me as if there is or has been a concept in Islam that is best described in English as concubinage and which deserves an article. Is this disputed?

It also appears that there is or has been a concept in Islam that is best described in English as sexual slavery and which also deserves an article. Is this disputed?

Unless one of these is disputed, then the only remaining question is, are they in fact just two names for the same thing? It seems to me that they are not, which is why I suggest a split. But that's just judging from the previous rather confused discussions. Opinions on that? Andrewa (talk) 05:36, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@Andrewa: It sounds to me as if there is or has been a concept in Islam that is best described in English as concubinage and which deserves an article. Is this disputed? I fully agree, for sources see #part1.

It also appears that there is or has been a concept in Islam that is best described in English as sexual slavery and which also deserves an article. Is this disputed? I agree that many sources discuss sexual slavery by Muslim extremists like ISIS who claim religious motivation.[3] This was also pointed out by Karaeng Matoaya.

are they in fact just two names for the same thing? They are not the same thing, as you correctly pointed out. There is a world of difference between Islam and ISIS.VR _talk 13:09, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@Vice regent: So according to you this is the only difference between “Sexual slavery in Islam” and “Concubinage in Islam”: the positive-but-imprecise or the negative-but-precise impact of the label given by English speakers. As for how technically they would differ, or would be represented by different passages in the scriptures you have no arguments, right? The word “concubinage” has certainly been used in English-language academic articles that treat sexual slavery in Islam, but you will hardly find any source that uses “concubinage” and that does not also clarify that it is slavery. So basically the phenomenon that will be treated there would be the same phenomenon that is treated here, and the sources that would be used in support of “Concubinage in Islam” would be the same sources that are currently used in support of “Sexual slavery in Islam”. --Grufo (talk) 14:33, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose: Concubinage is part of sexual slavery. Mcphurphy (talk) 06:05, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Can you provide WP:RS to back up your claim that "concubinage is part of sexual slavery"? Note, that on wikipedia we have two different articles concubinage and sexual slavery.VR _talk 13:09, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

“Note, that on wikipedia we have two different articles concubinage and sexual slavery”: That is because actual concubinage is not part of sexual slavery, but the Islamic one is (or better it is not at all a concubinage, but at most a “concubinage with slaves”). --Grufo (talk) 14:14, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

• This situation may be analogous to the situation with Jihad, jihadism and Islamic terrorism. There are similarities between the concepts but they are different enough subjects to each merit their own article.VR _talk 13:09, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

How are Islamic “concubinage” and sexual slavery “different enough”? Could you give some arguments instead of walking around the point? Would an article named “Concubinage in Islam” talk about anything different than “Sexual slavery in Islam” from a scriptural point of view? --Grufo (talk) 13:54, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Similar to how military jihad and Islamic terrorism are different, even though Muslim terrorists cite the same verses that are believed by other Muslims to be on the topic of jihad.VR _talk 14:41, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Ok, you are unable to explain with simple words the difference between “concubinage in Islam” and “sexual slavery in Islam”. --Grufo (talk) 14:52, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

• Support: Wikipedia is not a source, but its own articles on concubine and sexual slavery show that they are two completely different scenarios. A concubine amounts to a junior wife, whose children are often considered legitimate (legally) but who has a lower social ranking. There's no evidence that concubines entered their marriages less ability to choose than higher ranking wives. There may be extremists like ISIL who try to euphemize their abuse and human trafficking as "concubinage," but obviously the reliable sources would not agree with that. I'm not sure how these two got conflated in the first place, but I think it could be easily sourced that they are very different. AnandaBliss (talk) 23:29, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. Reliable sources indicate that the children of concubines in Islam were regarded as legitimate. Concubines and Courtesans (Oxford University Press) says And third, her child is considered freeborn and legitimate. The child is a full member of the father's family, heir to the father's estate, and equally legal to any of the father's freeborn children.. This is a far cry from sexual slavery.VR _talk 00:21, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

“the children of concubines in Islam were regarded as legitimate”: That does not make the slave who gave birth to them under slavery any “less slave”. --Grufo (talk) 00:27, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

The concubine who gave birth to the master's child could no longer be sold was automatically free after the master's death. That's not what typically happens in sexual slavery.VR _talk 00:42, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Also a slave married by her master stopped to be a slave. But both things (being forced to give birth or being forced to get married) do not erase her past. --Grufo (talk) 01:51, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

“A concubine amounts to a junior wife”: That is rather a further reason against the split. A “concubine” in Islam could be sold away or forced to marry someone else, all things that can hardly pertain to a “junior wife”. And indeed the sources normally define the “concubines” as “war captives”, “slave-girls”, “enslaved women”, etc. --Grufo (talk) 00:27, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

This was refuted above, when the anon IP cited a reliable source indicating that a "concubine" in China could be married off to someone else by her master. This was normative historical practice with concubines.VR _talk 00:42, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

I cannot access the book cited, but I definitely trust that this is true. As long as we remain within Islam, see the answer I had given to editor Karaeng Matoaya (remember that the main meaning of concubinage has nothing to do with slavery):

with China you are talking about a historically circumscribed (now unproductive) phenomenon that got first described in the West in a time where a label such as “sexual slavery” would not even be possible, thus as such it got crystallized. With Islam we are talking about a potentially productive phenomenon (unless you consider “Islam” – which is what the article talks about – a dead religion), and using a linguistic relic for it, such as “concubinage”, is unjustified.

You could argue that if you found a way to differentiate “historical sexual slaves” from the abstract concept described in “Sexual slavery in Islam” you could call the former “concubines” too, since it would be the same unproductive phenomenon as the Chinese one and it got first described in the West using the same term. The questions then are:

1. How are the past sexual slaves different from the kind of sexual slavery that Muhammad Taqi Usmani considers still legal today? Are they treated differently by the scriptures? Just as a theoretical question: if the Deobandi folks started to enslave non-Muslim women today following Muhammad Taqi Usmani, should we call these slaves “concubines”?

2. Is this difference, if found, big enough to justify a split instead of simply mentioning in the current article that Islamic sexual slaves from the past have been historically known in the West as “concubines”?

--Grufo (talk) 01:31, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Are they different

In the context of Islam, how are the English terms concubinage and sexual slavery related? This is discussed in places above, and seems to me to be the key issue.

They could mean exactly the same thing. I raise this first because I don't think that is likely, but it is suggested above.

One could be a type of the other. In particular, all concubinage could be forms of sexual slavery. (I don't think it's been suggested that all sexual slavery is a form of concubinage.) This seems likely to be a POV. Sources required at least.

Or they could be related but significantly different, and at least in some places and at some times neither one has been simply a type of the other. In which case, two articles would still seem the obvious course to me. Andrewa (talk) 14:35, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@Andrewa: I did provide sources for both concepts. For concubinage see sources in #Part1. For sexual slavery, see [[4] this].VR _talk 14:41, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

That first link, for concubinage doesn't work for me... can you cite the particular source or sources?

The second link is a a good one. Even without the first, it does seem to describe as sexual slavery something that I very much doubt could be called concubinage.

So let us cut to the chase... do you think that they are significantly different things? Or is there some other possibility? Andrewa (talk) 14:55, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@Andrewa: “One could be a type of the other”: Sure, if the master sold his sexual slave it would not be concubinage with the slave, it would be slave-trafficking. So definitely “concubinage” with the slave requires at least not selling her away. In this sense “concubinage” would be a sub-category of sexual slavery. But I would like to ask you to be more precise in what you suspect the difference would possibly be, or otherwise you are just resurrecting the closed discussion about how to name “Sexual slavery in Islam”. --Grufo (talk) 14:48, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Concubinage seems to be an accepted part of Islam, but moderate Islam condemns sexual slavery. That's just a start, but is it OK so far? Andrewa (talk) 15:53, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I still don't get it. Do you mean that it is accepted for a Muslim (today or in the past) to live in a concubinage only if this does not involve sexual slavery? --Grufo (talk) 16:01, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

No. So let us take what I did say a little at a time. Do you agree that concubinage is an accepted part of Islam? Andrewa (talk) 16:08, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

“Do you agree that concubinage is an accepted part of Islam?”. I do not. I think that Islam absolutely forbids actual concubinage – today and in the past – but it allowed/allows sexual slavery. Fortunately contemporary Muslims and Muslim government in most cases ignore the Quranic permission and align towards a general world-spread condemnation of sexual slavery. But while we can discuss about whether Islam still allows sexual slavery or not, a permission to live in a concubinage between non-slaves has never existed. Although far from perfect, the situation is more or less explained in Sexual slavery in Islam § Modern Muslim attitudes. Moreover, before proposing a split we should have clear in what “sexual slavery” and “concubinage” in Islam differ, which is still a missing element in this discussion. --Grufo (talk) 16:24, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

That is your WP:OR. The Encyclopedia of Quran[5] (unfortunately behind a paywall) has an article named Concubines and says The vague quranic pronouncements on concubines are matched by vigorous debates in the first few centuries over the status of children born to concubines. Although the Prophet is known to have had a child by his concubine Mariya.... Clearly concubinage is a part of Quran and the life Muhammad.VR _talk 16:47, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Good. How were these “concubines” different from the sexual slaves allowed at the time? If they are the same thing and the label whereby a sexual slave is referred to does not constitute an actual differentiation from what is already treated in “Sexual slavery in Islam”, the split is unjustified. --Grufo (talk) 16:52, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

When you say Good, do you mean you now agree that concubinage is a part of Islamic scriptures? Secondly, I explained the difference between concubinage and sexual slavery, in the Islamic context, 3 times in the past few hours: here, here and here.VR _talk 17:08, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

“When you say Good, do you mean you now agree that concubinage is a part of Islamic scriptures?”

No, when I say “Good” I mean “Good that finally some differentiation seems to arrive” – but I am still waiting.

“I explained the difference between concubinage and sexual slavery, in the Islamic context, 3 times in the past few hours”

And I have answered to your first explanation that a positive-but-imprecise label and a negative-but-precise label given by English speakers do not constitute a differentiation of the phenomenon. The last two explanations of yours instead were not actual explanations but only fallacies of faulty generalization.

--Grufo (talk) 17:19, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

So just to clarify, your position is still that concubinage is not a part of Islam? Despite the fact that I provided a reliable source[6] saying otherwise? VR _talk 17:27, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

My position is that concubinage in Islam is allowed only within “sexual slavery”. And as I have explained in the discussion that you have started in Andrewa's Talk Page, a “concubinage with a slave” is not best described by the word “concubinage” more than “sex with a slave” is best described by the word “sex”. --Grufo (talk) 17:36, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I begin to understand I think. You seem to be saying that, within Islam, concubinage is a form of sexual slavery. Your strong belief that this is true and important seems to be the reason for much of this discussion.

Elsewhere you have said that they are synonyms. Those two views are not inconsistent each with the other, but it's a confusing approach... if they are both true then concubinage would be the only form of sexual slavery within Islam. And that is inconsistent with sources that use the term sexual slavery for something that nobody seems to regard as any form of concubinage. Andrewa (talk) 22:12, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@Andrewa:

Don't get me wrong, but I believe you should read the entire discussion – some parts of it are in the archive. It has been going for a while and most of the points have been discussed already.

“You seem to be saying that, within Islam, concubinage is a form of sexual slavery”

I don't think that concubinage is a form of slavery, I think that concubinage in Islam is something allowed only with slaves. Historically the term “concubinage” was born for describing non-marital relationships between free people in ancient Rome, and when applied to the contemporary world it is a synonym of “civil union” – see for example the 1999 French law about the rights of living in a concubinage ([7]).

“Your strong belief that this is true and important seems to be the reason for much of this discussion”

I have arrived quite late here and it is not my strong belief that in Islam concubinage is allowed only with slaves, it is a widely accepted fact among all the participants of this discussion.

“Elsewhere you have said that they are synonyms”

I rather said the opposite, “concubinage” can only be forced to mean “sexual slavery” and it normally means “non-marital relationship between free people” – but you will have to read the discussion for our research (both sides) about the terms “concubine” and “concubinage”. Some good starts for my point of view on the topic could be this comment and this other comment of mine. Now, if you do force “concubinage” to mean “sexual slavery” and then you make a split named “Concubinage in Islam” keeping the current page “Sexual slavery in Islam” you are making a split on a (poorly chosen) synonym, as I have said in your Talk Page.

“they are both true then concubinage would be the only form of sexual slavery within Islam”

The points are both incorrect, and concubinage is not a form of slavery in Islam, it is only something allowed with sexual slaves. It is also not the only thing allowed with sexual slaves: slave-trafficking and forced marriages are other things that have been allowed for example, which have nothing to do with concubinage.

As I said, don't get me wrong, but I believe it would be helpful if you participated in this discussion only after having read a substantial part of what has been already discussed. --Grufo (talk) 23:54, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

And what makes you think I haven't? There's a great deal to wade through, and none of it seems particularly helpful here. There are two archives each with only three sections (one with an arbitrary break). If there's something there that you find particularly relevant, cite it... just the date of the post and which archive it's from is enough. Andrewa (talk) 09:41, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Differences between “sexual slavery” and “concubinage” in Islamic Law

Proponents of the split should list here the differences between “sexual slavery” and “concubinage” in Islamic Law. This list will constitute the basis of what the proposed split will talk about. Please keep this list as dry as possible. For the discussion use the appropriate paragraph. --Grufo (talk) 01:11, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

• [this list is currently empty]

Discussion

This is irrelevant, for several reasons.

One is simply that Islamic law is in Arabic. There may well be only one term for such relationships in Arabic, sometimes translated as one English term and sometimes the other. But there can still be two different topics in English Wikipedia, just as some languages have several different words for different types of what we call snow. So whether or not Islamic law makes a distinction, English readers can and do. A concubine, as understood in English, can have a far higher status than a slave would have.

It is possible that the concept of concubinage does not exist anywhere in Islam, and never has. But this is certainly not what the current article says. The term concubine occurs 71 times. Let me just quote the first of these: Many female slaves became concubines to their owners and bore their children. Others were just used for sex before being transferred. The allowance for men to use contraception with female slaves assisted in thwarting unwanted pregnancies. (A reference is given and the abstract is available online but the text is behind a paywall... Or does Wikipedia have an account to access it?) This seems to be saying that a sexual slave could improve her position by being allowed to bear children, which is compatible with the Judeo-Christian tradition as well, and if that is not what is intended then it should be rephrased. Notable concubines in the Judeo-Christian tradition are of course Hagar, Zilpah, Bilhah, and the three hundred lesser wives of Solomon who ranked below his seven hundred senior wives or princesses. Mention should also be made here of priestly concubinage (currently a redlink but we should have an article) as condemned by the Council of Trent.

If on the other hand it is true that no such concept has ever existed in Islam, then there is indeed no need for a separate article. Instead we need to source that information, and have a section of this article that says something like Although the term "concubine" has sometimes been used to translate the Arabic term of (whatever it is), such women have always had identical status to other slaves used for sexual purposes, and probably eliminate all of the existing 71 mentions of concubine. As I said, that is not what the article currently says at all, or ever has so far as I can see, and it seems unlikely to me. But we go by sources, not guesswork.

Either way there is work to do. Andrewa (talk) 04:58, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Andrewa. Jihad and Islamic terrorism are often based on the same verses and the same concepts in Islamic law, yet are two very different concepts. Surveying literature, there are a number of differences between concubinage and sexual slavery that jump out at me. One of them is embedded in the name itself: concubinage is defined as an unequal relationship between man and woman where the woman has the lower status. It was pointed out earlier that while sexual slavery includes the possibility of same-sex relationships, concubinage in Islam does not. This is not a hypothetical because such sexual slavery did exist in the pre-Islamic Roman Empire (see Sexuality_in_ancient_Rome#Master-slave_relations) and practised by some Muslims as Bacha bazi . According to the Encyclopedia of the Qur'an, prostitution of concubines is strictly prohibited in Islam, yet prostitution is one of the hallmarks of sexual slavery (see Sexual_slavery#Forced_prostitution). The encyclopedia also points out that The Quran also promotes marriage to slaves and abstinence as alternatives to right of intercourse by possession. By contrast, there is no evidence of ISIL ever advocating for "marriage" and "abstinence" in its sexual slavery, quite the evidence to the contrary. Then AnandaBliss pointed out that Islamic concubinage grants legitimacy to the concubine's children. We see something totally different when it comes to ISIL's sexual slavery. And AhmadF.Cheema pointed out that even the status of the concubine changed if she had children. Andrewa brought up the point of a concubine having a higher status than a sex slave. This is true: Muhammad's concubine Mariya is referred to in Islamic scriptures as "Mother of the Believers". Concubines even indirectly ruled the Ottoman Empire during Sultanate of Women. This is rather different from ISIL's sexual slavery. These are just some of the very many differences between concubinage and sexual slavery.

Grufo, you keep telling Andrewa to re-read previous discussion, but maybe you should too?VR _talk 11:06, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

“concubinage is defined as an unequal relationship between man and woman where the woman has the lower status”

According to the normal meaning a “concubinage” has a lower status than a marriage, and a “concubine” has a lower status than a wife. But whether the man and the woman have the same status or not this information is not carried by the term “concubinage”.

“while sexual slavery includes the possibility of same-sex relationships, concubinage in Islam does not”

Are there no cases of male sexual slaves used as concubines in the history of Muslim countries? Does this pertains to Islam?

“prostitution of concubines is strictly prohibited in Islam, yet prostitution is one of the hallmarks of sexual slavery (see Sexual_slavery#Forced_prostitution)”

We are not differentiating between “concubines in Islam” and “sexual slavery in the rest of the world”. If prostitution of concubines is prohibited in Islam, is prostitution of sexual slaves allowed in Islam instead?

“By contrast, there is no evidence of ISIL ever advocating for "marriage" and "abstinence" in its sexual slavery, quite the evidence to the contrary”

If what is advocated by Islamic terrorists differs substantially from what is accepted in Islamic law a split can be made about “Sexual slavery in Islamic terrorism”.

“Concubines even indirectly ruled the Ottoman Empire during Sultanate of Women”

There were very powerful slaves in ancient Rome too. This affected exactly zero the institution of slavery.

--Grufo (talk) 13:23, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

@Andrewa:

“So whether or not Islamic law makes a distinction, English readers can and do. A concubine, as understood in English, can have a far higher status than a slave would have.”

We are finally doing progress. As I understand you are proposing a distinction between slaves for pleasure and slaves who bore children. Were the slaves for pleasure who never bore children not called “concubines” as well? Do the English readers make a distinction within the theological institution? If the distinction (if found) is about particular contexts a split can talk about Muslim countries, not Islam: we should not attribute to Islam something that does not belong to it.

“Instead we need to source that information, and have a section of this article that says something like …”

We would not need to erase the term concubine from the article if the slaves have been used as concubines. I made an example elsewhere that if in a contexts some slaves were used for house holding, and we had an article about the slaves in that context, after making clear that they are slaves we can mention them as the “householders”.

--Grufo (talk) 13:05, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Grufo I like your proposal of separating Concubinage in Islam from Sexual slavery in Islamic terrorism, a similar proposal was made by Karaeng Matoaya.VR _talk 15:10, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Please do not attribute to me proposals I never made. I repeatedly expressed my opinion that the word “concubinage” is not best suited for defining any institutions involving slavery, particularly in contexts of potentiality productive phenomena (i.e., the present) in an encyclopedia like Wikipedia; and I am not proposing any split, since I am not competent enough about Islamic terrorism. But if a substantial difference is found it is possible to have two pages, one would be the current (Sexual slavery in Islam) and one would be the new page (Sexual slavery in Islamic terrorism), containing what cannot be listed under “Sexual slavery in Islam” (as not accepted as part of Islamic law although claimed as such). --Grufo (talk) 16:20, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

• Vpab15 said this article is "supposed to be based on Islamic law". But that's not true. As the sections on Sexual_slavery_in_Islam#Modern_manifestations and Sexual_slavery_in_Islam#History_of_sexual_enslavement show, this article includes practices that are not tied to Islamic law at all. Nor are the sources that are used in those sections mention Islamic law. In fact the sources don't even mention Islam! I actually brought this up before at Talk:Sexual_slavery_in_Islam#This_article_is_not_about_rapes_committed_by_Muslims.VR _talk 14:54, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

If the article includes cases of sexual slavery that are not based on Islamic law, then they should be removed. To give a clear example (not in the article), bacha bazi or dancing boys is a practice clearly not based in Islam, since Islam forbids homosexualty. Not sure if other cases in the article are so clear-cut however. In any case, two wrongs don't make a right. If there are no practices of sexual slavery based on Islamic law outside concubinage, there should not be a split. Vpab15 (talk) 15:47, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Vpab15 I looked at the sources in Sexual_slavery_in_Islam#South_Asia and none seem to connect the rapes to Islamic law. So should that be removed? Also, I recently added the case of ISIL to the artice. Islam, as interpreted by mainstream Muslims, forbids the actions of ISIL (and WP:RS show that majority of Muslims have condemned ISIL). Should that be removed too? VR _talk 16:55, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

This seems not true to me. I checked the first two sources and they do talk about Islamic law (shariat) and forced conversions of the enslaved women to Islam. --Grufo (talk) 17:09, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

We can discuss the details in another section, but the point is this: are you suggesting that if some historical event is not considered according to Islamic law by WP:reliable sources then it should not be in this article? Or do you think all instances of sexual slavery practiced by Muslims throughout history are relevant to this article? VR _talk 22:12, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

What I believe is that no slave trader, whether today or thousand years ago, ever wrote a book of theology before enslaving women. So I don't know what you expect, the blessing of an imam? The enslavement of women during the partition of India did not happen by the hand of an organized terrorist group, it was a widespread phenomenon that found its justification in the Islamic religion. It was so widespread that I would not be surprised if some imams did endorse it. Does that mean that Muslims today are violent or endorse slavery? No. Is that a possible sign that the Islamic scriptures are violent? Yes, more or less like most scriptures (maybe with the only exception of The Loose Canon). --Grufo (talk) 01:10, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

With 1.6 billion Muslims, it is not hard to find imams who will endorse anything and everything as "Islamic". Bacha bazi is justified by certain mullahs too[8]. So should that be included in this article too?VR _talk 01:49, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Bacha bazi does not look to me as a phenomenon that directly finds its justification in the Islamic law, it looks more like an unwanted indirect consequence of the sex segregation imposed by the religion. --Grufo (talk) 03:16, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Bacha bazi isn't slavery. Its a term which simply means pedaresty. What happened to women during the partition of India is included by scholarly sources under slavery and concubinage. We can see that the events then were complete with forced conversions and selling of captive women to Middle Eastern harems. Harems are without a doubt a part of this article. More sources which refer to the enslavement of non-muslim women as war booty during partition in 1947. Mcphurphy (talk) 03:57, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Here are sources that call bacha bazi sexual slavery[9][10]. Pawan Deshpande is hardly a reliable source. And what happened to Hindu women on the Pakistani side also happened to Muslim women on the Indian side. Yet we don't mention it in an article on Sexual slavery in Hinduism, now do we? VR _talk 11:28, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

“And what happened to Hindu women on the Pakistani side also happened to Muslim women on the Indian side”: Enslaving women and selling them to Islamic harems definitely pertains to this article. If you believe that Sexual slavery in Hinduism was an important phenomenon like Sexual slavery in Islam was, you could propose a dedicated page; and if the Pakistani women were also used as sexual slaves in anything related to to the new page (like the harems here), you can mention the same fact in the new page. During wars people commit horrible facts, and I do not think that who rapes women does it in the name of religion (they can at most justify it). But I do believe that if harems did not exist, or if the population willing to pay for enslaved around was scarcer, there would be at least an incentive less to enslave women. Religious acceptance of sexual slavery can play an important role in preserving it. If you have a look at Slavery and religion § Christianity, there are mentioned also relatively recent events that were not born in the name of the religion, and nevertheless the religion's acceptance is (correctly) considered enough for mentioning them in the paragraph. --Grufo (talk) 15:05, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

A summary of positions

I invite any interested to indicate whether they are for or against the split, and briefly why. One sentence should do. This is not an RfC or anything so formal, although it might at some stage be closed by an uninvolved editor if they assess that there is a rough consensus. I will go first. No discussion here please, that belongs in other sections, and it all should follow the talk page guidelines of course.

• Support split as proposer. There seem to be two notable topics, related but distinct, and there is plenty of sourced material. Andrewa (talk) 22:08, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose split – The English labels “Concubinage in Islam” and “Sexual slavery in Islam” are used for the identical Islamic institution (referred to in Arabic as muṭʿa, ladhdha, “slaves for pleasure” / jawārī al-waṭ, “slave-girls for sexual intercourse”), and no editor has presented any evidence of a possible differentiation. --Grufo (talk) 00:48, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
• Idea appears supported by an IP who has been contributing to this page for months here.
• Idea appears supported by AnandaBliss here.
• Support Andrew's proposal and will start working on something in my sandbox.VR _talk 11:11, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - I tend to agree with Grufo that there is not much difference between “Concubinage in Islam” and “Sexual slavery in Islam”. Some examples mentioned, such as Bacha bazi, are just practices that happen in Islamic countries, which might belong to the category "Sexual slavery in Muslim countries". This is very different from "Sexual slavery in Islam", which is supposed to be based on Islamic law. Unless the slavery practices outside "Concubinage in Islam" are also based on Islamic law, there should be no split. Vpab15 (talk) 11:39, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
• Opposed by Mcphurphy here
• Support split. Vice regent's made an excellent point here and I think it could not have been summarised any better in terms of the key differences. The split is therefore only logical and neutral. Mar4d (talk) 04:30, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

My more recent position

My thoughts have changed somewhat during the various discussions, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. See wp:creed#wrong, particularly the bit in brackets, and the very first bullet point in User:Andrewa/How not to rant.

Here is the position as I now see it. In particular, I am now sceptical that use of the term concubine in any sense is helpful at all.

• Sexual slavery, as understood today, has been permitted and practised during earlier periods of Islamic history. But that is not peculiar to Islam. it is common to many cultures including all three major Abrahamic religions. For example in the Book of Esther it is quite clear that the King sees no need to seek the consent of Esther, or of any other woman whether Hebrew or otherwise. This is not anything unusual, it is part of the status of women in such societies. Hagar, Zilpah and Bilhah are all regarded by some but not all scholars as having the status of sexual slaves.

• No form of slavery, sexual or otherwise, is legal in any Islamic country today, including those that regard themselves as following Sharia, also known as Islamic Law. It has however been common in the past.

• Some Islamic organisations continue to practise both slavery and sexual slavery, notably recent incidents involving ISIL.

• There is a concept in Sharia translated as what your right hand possesses that permitted sexual intercourse with slaves.

• The article Sexual slavery in Islam currently uses the terms concubine and concubinage 104 times, 95 in the text and 9 in footnotes, with various meanings. There are no English language sources given to justify most of these various meanings. (I have looked laboriously at them all, but cannot promise not to have missed any good ones. Can anyone find ones I have missed?)
  • It sometimes appears to be a euphamism for a form of sexual slavery.
    • Here for example we find The term suriyya (concubine) was used for female slaves with whom masters enjoyed sexual relations but no source is given.
    • A reference to Google books is given later but the term concubine is not mentioned there.
  • In other places it is used as a term for a lesser status wife or umm walad.
    • Here we read If she became an umm walad her daily life would probably resemble that of a free wife, but with a lower position.
  • In other places, the terms slave concubine or slave-concubine are used. Does this imply that there were also free concubines? It appears to assume this, and if not is confusing.
  • The term free wives is also used, implying that slaves could be wives.
    • But elsewhere We read Women preferred that their husbands keep concubines instead of taking a second wife. This was because a co-wife represented a greater threat to their position. Owning many concubines was perhaps more common than having several wives. This appears to imply that a concubine was not regarded as a wife at all.
  • A distinction in English is possibly made by He wrote that "They buy free women to be their wives, or they buy "conquered women" at a lesser price to be their concubines." The source given is not available online, but may support the usage of concubine to be synonymous with sexual slave.

• While other language sources can be used to justify notability and factual content, they cannot be used to justify choice of English terminology. Whether in article text or article titles, we use English as it is found in English-language sources. Use of unsourced euphamistic language is POV.

• Concubinage has a clear English meaning that depends on the period of history in question. It describes the status of of the 300 wives of Solomon who were not princesses, but not of the 700 who were princesses. It describes the ambiguous status of Hagar, Zilpah and Bilhah. It describes common-law wives taken by Christian priests, as for example condemned at the Council of Trent.

Have I got that much right?

The challenge as I see it is to come up with a well-sourced, NPOV article or articles that will be informative and not confusing to the general reader. The term concubine is currently used with so many different and conflicting meanings that it is best simply eliminated.

Or if not, I think it is now up to those who wish to retain it to demonstrate its use in reliable English-language secondary sources. That use need not be consistent, but if inconsistent the usage in articles should be restricted to discussions of direct quotations from sources (and those quotations themselves of course), and the inconsistency in terminology should be noted.

These inconsistencies arise at least in part from changes in meaning of the Arabic terms being translated over time. This is no help. It would be far clearer to use these untranslated Arabic terms, and note their changes in meaning, rather than use an English term whose meaning has not changed to match.

Comments? Andrewa (talk) 08:31, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

• Comment:

“In other places, the terms slave concubine or slave-concubine are used.”

The main reason is that in traditional Western sources there was not an equivalent definition for “sexual slave”. In antiquity a slave was just a slave and people could do whatever they wanted with them (including sex), while a concubine, in the place where they invented the term, was a lover and free person. After the middle age in Western sources the term “concubine” started to be lightly used by the Westerners who had contact with the Middle East for describing Islamic sexual slaves. But in academic sources, where precision is required, simply using “concubine” for a “slave for sexual intercourse” is felt inappropriate, hence “slave-concubine”.

“Does this imply that there were also free concubines? It appears to assume this, and if not is confusing.”

Absolutely not, in Islam it is strictly forbidden for a free woman to have any sexual intercourse except with her husband (or with no one if she is not married). There are no free concubines.

“If she became an umm walad her daily life would probably resemble that of a free wife, but with a lower position”

She would be exactly the same slave as before, with only few restrictions, such as the impossibility of being sold (which would not even be a good thing in the cases where she has a horrible/violent master).

“The term free wives is also used, implying that slaves could be wives”

A sexual-slave can always be “freed” by her master and become a “free wife”, although in this case we are not talking about slavery anymore. A man in Islam can have at most four wives (always free women) but an infinity of concubines (always slaves).

“Concubinage has a clear English meaning that depends on the period of history in question”

If you by chance happen to notice that in the Concubinage page there is an undue connection with slavery, that is because recently an editor involved in this discussion has massively edited the page in that direction, using as only source for “concubinage” a dictionary of slavery. These edits are currently being discussed as well.

“Comments?”

I did my best for my two cents. Thank you for the summary, Andrewa.

--Grufo (talk) 13:06, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Andrewa and Grufo most English language sources use the term "concubine", see #part1. However, one English language source says this:

[The Quran] permits the male owner of a female slave to take her as a surriyya (plural sarari) 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’).

In that case, would "slave-concubine" be a term that we can all agree to? If not, what would be the objection of using that term? Another acceptable alternative would simply be "female slave".VR _talk 14:02, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

“In that case, would "slave-concubine" be a term that we can all agree to? If not, what would be the objection of using that term”

As long as we are in a page named “Sexual slavery in Islam” and it is clearly stated that we are talking about the institution of sexual slavery, we can even mention them as “concubine”, “lover”, “chattel”, “lower wife”, or whatever fits a good style of English writing. See for example what I had already sad in a comment:

Most sources, including the sources proposed by Vice regent, are very clear in using the right words: slaves, enslaved, captive, sexual use, etc. etc. – fact that you keep not acknowledging. Once a source has made it clear that it is talking about slaves it can even call the sexual slaves “lovers”, “concubines”, “lower wives”, etc.: the reader won't forget that it is talking about slaves. In the same way, if a source were talking about other kinds of slaves whose main task was a different one – let's say house holding – it could perfectly start calling such slaves the “householders”, as long as it has made clear at least once that it is talking about slaves.

But although the term can be used, it cannot be used to define the institution. There is no differentiation in the Islamic law based on how frequently the master spent his time with his sexual slave. On the other hand the article is already unbalanced towards a frequent usage of “concubine” (as mentioned by Andrewa the term appears “104 times, 95 in the text and 9 in footnotes”), and the usage of the word should rather be reduced. Being imprisoned in a harem makes the term “concubinage”, which elsewhere is a synonym of freedom from marriage, usable for these women only with great care – before borrowing the current Arabic word the classical English word for “harem” was “serail”, which literaly means “locked-up place”.

--Grufo (talk) 14:45, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Andrewa In other places, the terms slave concubine or slave-concubine are used. Does this imply that there were also free concubines? I think you are interpreting "slave" in "slave-concubine" as an adjective. Instead I think "slave" here is used as a noun. So a "slave-concubine" is someone who is both a slave and a concubine.VR _talk 14:20, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Agree that a "slave-concubine" is someone who is both a slave and a concubine. But that term should only be used if there were concubines who were not slaves... if all concubines are slaves, then there is no difference between a concubine and a slave-concubine. That is my point. So the term slave-concubine in that case is redundant, unnecessary and confusing. And I don't think the grammatical issue you raise changes any of that. Andrewa (talk) 20:51, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

The most commonly used term for concubine in Arabic is suriyya, plural sarai. But we should use the term used by English sources. When the discussion is related to what is prescribed in Islamic scriptures and medieval Muslim practices, the most commonly used term is "concubine", you can also see that at #Part1. But in discussions about ISIL, "sex slave" seems more common.VR _talk 21:13, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

@Andrewa:, the above is my comment about the translation of concubine.VR _talk 17:09, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Human trafficking in Muslim-majority countries

Does contemporary human trafficking in Muslim-majority countries fall within the scope of this article? A user recently such related information to this article.VR _talk 19:39, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

@Vice regent: As per the lede on the human trafficking article, "Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others." I do not understand why you would think that contemporary human trafficking would not fall under the scope of this article. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 19:54, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

@Vice regent: I apologize in advance if the previous question statement seems insensitive. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 19:55, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

@CommonKnowledgeCreator: If you are interested in the contemporary manifestations of sexual slavery within the Islamic world there is also Draft:Sexual slavery in Islamic terrorism. I do not have much time to work on it, but maybe you can help? See the guidelines at § A different “split” and see also Draft talk:Sexual slavery in Islamic terrorism. --Grufo (talk) 19:18, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

@Grufo: Sorry, Grufo. I'm neither a professional expert nor an amateur expert on the topic. I only added the content from Pinker's book (which I own a copy of) and the Hudson & Thayer article to the Sexual slavery in Islam article after it was removed from the Sexual economy section of the Slavery in the US article (which I added only for a kind of comparative understanding of the Atlantic and Arab slave trades for the reader). I only came into the content from the Hudson & Thayer article while looking for any hard data about polygyny I could find (which I added to the Findings section of the Wikipedia article on that topic). -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 19:47, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Citing sources from this article

I am trying to copy the sources from this article and add it to other articles but I observed that I only just get the name of the author and year of publication - I don't get the full details as can be seen here. How do I add all those details when I cite sources that I copy from this article to other articles? Please let me know. Please also let me know how to read what those sources say.—Dr2Rao (talk) 13:38, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

How do I find such books online using Google?—Dr2Rao (talk) 13:44, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

@Dr2Rao: You may have to pay to access some sources, you are able access some sources for free via the Wikipedia Library Card Platform, however this requires you to have 500+ edits, 6+ months editing, 10+ edits in the last month and no active blocks. Dylsss (talk) 15:52, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Vice regent, I saw your message on my talk page which is why I asked the question above. Please answer it. I have copied the source from this article without reading it. How do I read it? How do I add all those details when I cite sources that I copy from this article to other articles?—Dr2Rao (talk) 18:02, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Dr2Rao, the citation system used is called "short citations". Click on the short citation (listed in format "[Surname] [year]") and the page will automatically scoll down to full citation listed at the end of the page. You can copy all sources used from that section. TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 18:24, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

TryKid, Here it says a muslim can have as many slave concubines as he wants and Female captives were frequently used as sexual partners sanctioned in the Quran "ma malakat aymanuhum/kum (what your right hand possesses)". How do I cite it?—Dr2Rao (talk) 06:31, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

The book is already listed in the bibliography section, so you can cite it by adding "{{sfn|Ali|2015|p=xx}}"; "p" stands for page number, so if you want to cite, say, page 30, write {{sfn|Ali|2015|p=30}}. Just open the wikitext and see how other statements are cited and you'll get a good idea on how to add new statements. Side note: Ali's book "Sexual Ethics and Islam" listed twice in the bibliography for some reason, seems to in error. Regards, TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 07:00, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

TryKid, I want to cite that reference for this edit in the article on Kafir. How should I?—Dr2Rao (talk) 09:53, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

You would need to copy the full citation from the bibliography section to replicate it in Kafir article and ref tags since sfn system isn't used on that article. I've added the citation in that article for you. Regards, TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 10:26, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks TryKid—Dr2Rao (talk) 13:14, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

{{POV section}} and {{POV}} tags

Currently the article contains {{POV section}} and {{POV}} tags referencing to discussions in this Talk page, but no discussion about neutrality is currently open. There are two possible scenarios in this case: either someone starts discussing about POV or we remove the tags – they can always be re-added in case a new discussion is opened. --Grufo (talk) 14:40, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

There is literally discussion going on in above sections where there are disagreements. If you look at the article's talk page history you will see that.VR _talk 08:28, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Here are some additional issues. The lead is not neutral because you just removed an alternative perspective. Sexual_slavery_in_Islam#Forced_conversion_for_concubinage is sourced entirely to a source that is not specific to a topic. No sources that are specific to the topic seem to mention this - some even say the opposite that forced conversion is not allowed. It is WP:UNDUE to give it its own section. If you look at the sources in Sexual_slavery_in_Islam#The_issue_of_consent some include opposite perspectives, but none seem to be included in the article. These are just some of the POV issues with the article.VR _talk 08:47, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

It might also be worth adding more information to that section about the concept of sexual consent, when it developed (late 20th century onwards), etc. Right now the article kind of assumes that sexual consent as a concept existed 1000 years ago the way it does now, and Islamic jurists explicitly repudiated it or something. At least, that's the impression the average reader would get. Jushyosaha604 (talk) 04:08, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

New section imported from Concubinage

I know, the text is quite poorly written. However it bloated the Concubinage page more than any other section, and this is the place for it, as it is basically a duplicate of this page that looks at sexual slavery in Islam from a slightly different perspective. Meet the new section: Sexual slavery in Islam § Discussion. I hope we all won't mind reviewing and improving it, I am sure there will be interesting things to read. --Grufo (talk) 17:36, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

@Toddy1: I have seen that you have reverted the merge of the new section from Concubinage. Could you please explain? As things stands now this section goes either here or there. It is poorly written in both places, but chances are higher that it will improve by remaining here. --Grufo (talk) 19:40, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

No this is not OK; it is the sort of **** that got someone recently blocked. So I have reverted it. You also changed some quotations without explanation.

By the way, a concubine is a woman who is part of a man's household, and is in a sexual relationship with him, but is not his wife (and generally has a lower status than a wife). Such a person could be a free person, or could be a slave.

There is a third issue. Modern Western societies tend to assume that slavery is synonymous with chattel slavery. The ancient Greeks and Romans practiced many types of slavery (including chattel slavery). But when Western societies started practising slavery in the Americas in the 16th/17th Centuries, the model of slavery they adopted was chattel slavery. It is a mistake to assume that all slavery in the Islamic world was chattel slavery.-- Toddy1 (talk) 19:42, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for chiming in Toddy1 and I agree on both points.VR _talk 19:47, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Wait, Vice regent, were you not the one who wanted to renamed “Sexual slavery in Islam” to “Concubinage in Islam”? --Grufo (talk) 20:07, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

@Toddy1:

• First: The only thing I changed was "Qur'an" to "Quran" as per MOS:ISLAM#Quran, trying to avoid footnotes. I misread one single footnote, where "Qur'an" became "Quran" in a direct quotation. I apologize for the mistake. But I hope this topic is closed now.
• Second: “Such a person could be a free person, or could be a slave” -> Not in Islam
• Third: “It is a mistake to assume that all slavery in the Islamic world was chattel slavery”: How has this anything to do with the paragraph from Concubinage?

I'll ask again. What exactly is the reason why you have removed the paragraph from this page? --Grufo (talk) 19:54, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

If you bothered reading what you copied over, it contained content about both free women and slaves.VR _talk 20:15, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

That's very easy to find then! Here is the old paragraph. Could you help me to find any mention of free concubines? --Grufo (talk) 20:19, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Source needed

I am replacing this: Sexual slavery in Islam results from the permission in Islamic law for men to have sexual intercourse with the female slaves they own. with this:

Classical Islamic law allowed men to have sexual intercourse with their female slaves, subject to certain conditions.

There are plenty of sources that mention that medieval Islamic law allowed men to have sexual relations with their female slaves (subject to conditions). But I couldn't find any source that says it resulted in "sexual slavery". And if "sexual slavery" means the exact same thing as "having sex with slaves" then the sentence is redundant anyway.VR _talk 14:55, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

“I am replacing this”:

You should not open a discussion seeking for consensus about something you do anyway.

“subject to certain conditions”:

Unless you are talking about a prehistoric society in all societies slavery is regulated by laws. Emphasizing the (few) duties of a slave-owner (by the way, which ones? this is something that requires a source) in front of the mountain of inhuman duties that a slave had, especially in this context, sounds in the best scenario inopportune, in the worst apologetic.

--Grufo (talk) 15:22, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

By “subject to certain conditions” I had meant "subject to certain limitations". Some of these are already mentioned in the article (e.g. can't be a polytheist). But you're right that there were also conditions imposed such as provide food and shelter. There are many sources for this (Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, page 169). You're right, I'll add sources.VR _talk 15:31, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Couldn't find any sources on whether having sex with slaves was slavery? To me, it looks pretty much like the definition of sexual slavery. The first sentence from the Wikipedia article reads: "Sexual slavery and sexual exploitation is attaching the right of ownership over one or more people with the intent of coercing or otherwise forcing them to engage in sexual activities", with sources cited. The person who bought the slave "attached the right of ownership" with the intent of raping them. How is that not sexual slavery? You change overemphasizes the "certain conditions" (every Islamic law has some "subject to certain conditions"), in effect making the lead look whitewashed. I don't agree with it. If the sentence is redundant, there are probably better options, such as the simple "Sexual slavery was legal under Islamic law". Someone else can suggest something even better, but your change wasn't an improvement. Regards, TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 15:54, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

If its so obvious why can't we find any sources that say that "sexual slavery" was allowed in Islamic law? The term sexual slavery appears to be a term with a legal definition (Sexual_slavery#Definitions). This is similar to how a wikipedian can't look up the definition of genocide and then decide whether an event met that definition. A scholarly source has to call it as such. On the other hand most sources say that Islamic law allowed men to have sex with their female slaves, which is what I wrote.

But there were "certain conditions" and were detailed out in Islamic law.VR _talk 16:11, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

"Islamic law allowed men to have sex with their female slaves" is one way to say that Islam allowed sexual slavery. It is just not the most clear and straight way to say it in my opinion (and the opinion of other editors as far as I can tell). Vpab15 (talk) 16:30, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

It seems that you believe the two statements are equivalent. In that case the former statement is stated in reliable sources, but the latter one I can't find in reliable sources. No source says the Qur'an permitted "sexual slavery". Once again, "sexual slavery" is a legal term and we need WP:RS to make that determination.VR _talk 16:52, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

• Grufo the sources used here seem to be saying that Islamic law allows men to have sex with their female slaves, not that "sexual slavery is allowed in Islam". We should say what the sources do.VR _talk 11:35, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Are they not the same thing? We are saying what the sources do. But the Wikipedia article is about sexual slavery, not about sexual slaves. --Grufo (talk) 11:40, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't think they are the same thing because "sexual slavery" is a legal term (Sexual_slavery#Definitions) as pointed out by Karaeng Matoaya previously. No source seems to say "sexual slavery is allowed in Islam", rather they say that classical Islamic law allowed sexual relations with slaves. But if you think they are the same then it shouldn't be issue to use either wording, right?VR _talk 11:43, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

“I don't think they are the same thing because "sexual slavery" is a legal term”

The answer to this had been already wonderfully given to you by JorgeLaArdilla: “And yet it falls within the statement you (wrongly) described as an actual term with legal definitions Sexual_slavery#Definitions”

“But if you think they are the same then it shouldn't be issue to use either wording”

I said they express the same concept, I did not say they are stylistically equivalent. As a matter of fact what I said is that “the Wikipedia article is about sexual slavery, not about sexual slaves”.

--Grufo (talk) 11:57, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Users should not interpret legal terms and decide whether something meets its definition (e.g. we can't determine if a massacre constitutes genocide based on the term's definition - only WP:RS can). Instead, we need to find reliable sources that make this claim. The vast majority of sources I've read on this topic always use the phrasing "Classical Islamic law allowed sexual relations with slaves" or something similar. Haven't come across reliable sources that said "sexual slavery is allowed in Islam".VR _talk 12:08, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

“Users should not interpret legal terms”: Do you actually listen to the answers that are given to you, or do you start fantasizing about flying sheep when people speak? I will repeat JorgeLaArdilla words once again: “the statement you (wrongly) described as an actual term with legal definitions”. --Grufo (talk) 12:30, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Please don't make personal attacks.VR _talk 18:43, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

• Also note that MOS:AVOIDBOLD says it is better to avoid redundancy than to necessarily mention the title in bold.VR _talk 11:50, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
• The phrasing "sexual slavery in Islam results from..." seems to have been brought in by an indef blocked sockpuppet.[11] VR _talk 11:37, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

The edit you mentioned only removed the title that you had given to the page until a dispute was closed by an admin, but the sentence was already there months before. --Grufo (talk) 11:44, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Please self-revert

@Vice regent:

You keep changing the first sentence of this article despite four three editors have told you to stop (@TryKid: @Vpab15: @JorgeLaArdilla: and myself).

Please self-revert your edits.

--Grufo (talk) 12:06, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Which admin? And I don't recall JorgeLaArdilla of having participated. Or are you trying to canvas?VR _talk 12:10, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

You are right about JorgeLaArdilla, my mistake. --Grufo (talk) 12:24, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

What kind of canvassing would this be? Calling the editors who have already expressed an opinion about the same thing in this very same section, for discussing about the same thing again, due to the fact that you have resurrected the topic without involving others? I am actually doing what you should have done: involve others, and specifically exactly the persons I have pinged, since they are literally everyone who has contributed to this discussion. Canvassing is something completely different. I ask you once more: please self-revert. --Grufo (talk) 12:21, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

@Grufo: What's wrong with this neutral version? I think your desired version is not only against NPOV, but also is the result of original research. --Mhhossein ^talk 06:51, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

IP edit 13 October 2020

An IP editor has deleted or changed cited paragraphs.[12] The editor has also added some cited paragraphs. I think these need checking.-- Toddy1 (talk) 08:24, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Its about slavery not about what goes on in the marriage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.182.165 (talk) 13:06, 13 October 2020 (UTC)